Cuomo Vetoes Bill on Placement of Special Education Students
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo vetoed a bill on Tuesday requiring
public school officials to take into account the “home life and family
background” of special education students when placing them in schools, a
measure that would have given religious parents more power to demand that the
public pay for private education.
In a message accompanying the veto, Mr. Cuomo, a
Democrat, said the bill would have created “an overly broad and ambiguous
mandate” to send more students to private schools, burdening taxpayers with
“incalculable significant additional costs.”
Opponents of the measure, including the administration of
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and many school board associations, had argued that
it would force school districts to pay for far more students to attend
religious schools.
But the bill’s chief sponsor in the State Assembly,
Helene Weinstein, Democrat of Brooklyn, issued a statement vowing to “continue
the fight,” suggesting she would try to muster the two-thirds majority required
to override the veto. The bill passed the Democratic-led Assembly with 93
votes, just 7 short of that threshold, and sailed through with more than
two-thirds of the vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Supporters said the veto would disappoint thousands of
families whose children would be better equipped to learn in surroundings
compatible with their families’ practices and values, like Orthodox Jewish
children who are not used to secular settings.
“There is a lot of misunderstanding about the legislation
and what it would do,” Assemblywoman Weinstein said in a statement. “It is
about parents of children with special needs not having to get a lawyer every
year to fight for that which had been granted the previous year. It is about
ensuring that parents of children with special needs are not waiting
indefinitely for tuition reimbursements.”
James Cultrara, education director for the New York State
Catholic Conference, said that if the veto were not overridden, supporters
would push for a new version of the bill, perhaps drawn more narrowly to win
over some opponents.
“We will work with everyone involved to craft it in a way
that’s acceptable,” Mr. Cultrara said. But he added that he would have preferred
the governor to approve the bill and then clarify it through corrections in the
next session, rather than start the process over, disappointing some families
who had hoped for new placements in the coming school year.
Courts have expanded parents’ rights to demand that
school districts pay for private special education if public schools cannot
meet a student’s needs. The bill would have expanded the definition of needs to
include compatibility with the student’s home life, wording that opponents said
could cover religious practices as well as food and clothing preferences.
In his veto message, Mr. Cuomo said his administration
was committed to providing “the best education and assistance to every child in
New York, including children with disabilities.”
“However,” he added, “this bill unfairly places the
burden on taxpayers to support the provision of a private education.”
New York City now spends more than $100 million a year on
private schooling for about 5,000 special education students. In a statement,
Mayor Bloomberg said the bill would have constituted a new unfunded mandate for
school districts across the state.
“With his veto,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “Governor Cuomo has
once again shown his commitment to fiscal responsibility and to protecting both
the city and state from unsustainable financial burdens.”
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