On January 29, TCF fellow and Next100 senior policy entrepreneur Chantal Hinds submitted testimony to the New York State Senate Finance Committee and New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee in response to the committees’ joint legislative hearing on the 2025–2026 Executive Budget Proposal for Elementary and Secondary Education. In her testimony, a version of which you can read below, Hinds argues that the state’s student aid formula should explicitly account for students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness, citing their unique academic and social-emotional needs. The Century Foundation submitted this testimony to the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committee record.
On behalf of The Century Foundation (TCF), thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony regarding the 2025–2026 Executive Budget. My name is Chantal Hinds and I am a fellow at The Century Foundation (TCF). TCF is a progressive, independent think tank that conducts research, develops solutions, and drives policy change to make people’s lives better. TCF scholars have conducted research on education policy for over two decades and TCF’s research has influenced policy at the federal, state, and local levels including within New York State.
Ensuring that schools and school staff are equipped to meet the educational needs and challenges of students is critical to their success. Equitable and sufficient school funding helps to guarantee that every public school student receives an education on equal footing with their peers. Securing public education for all students—including students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness—starts with funding and ends with a thriving student population and bright futures for our youngest New Yorkers.
Governor Hochul and the State Legislature’s commitment to fully fund Foundation Aid for the first time in 2023 was welcome news after years of underfunding. However, the formula on which funding is based is seventeen years old and needs to be updated to keep pace with rising costs and the needs of students and schools today. The current formula does not fully account for various student populations including students with disabilities, English language learners, and low-income students. Additionally, the formula does not address the additional and unique needs of students in special circumstances like students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness.
Governor Hochul’s proposed changes to the formula to account for the needs of New York’s students are commendable. However her proposal to replace the “outdated 2000 Census poverty rate…with the most recent Census Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates [SAIPE] data” and to replace the “unreliable free- and reduced-price lunch data” with “economically disadvantaged data to better reflect the current population of low-income students” do not holistically or sufficiently address the needs of students in New York schools.
The SAIPE measure relies on the federal poverty threshold, which is very low at approximately $32,000 for a family of four. That income is far lower than the cost of living in New York leaving many students and families who are struggling to make ends meet, uncounted for purposes of school support. Any adjustments to the definitions of students in poverty must account for the costs of living across New York to ensure that no student who needs the support is left behind. The state should consider using differentiated weights for different concentrations of poverty, as recommended by the Rockefeller Institute, and add a new cost-of-living adjustment or a higher poverty threshold (e.g., a multiplier of the federal poverty level) for certain districts when determining which students should receive the “poverty weight” in different parts of the state. Additionally, any update to the poverty weight should include an update to the Regional Cost Index—as recommended by the New York State Board of Regents and the Rockefeller Institute—which accounts for differences in wages in different parts of the state but is nearly two decades out of date.
Along with using a more accurate and inclusive poverty measure, using “economically disadvantaged” to capture a whole host of students doesn’t fully address the needs of students that go above and beyond those of low-income students. An additional weight should be included in the formula to address the academic, social-emotional, and unique needs of students in the foster system and students who experience homelessness.
According to data from the state education department, there are a total of over 146,000 students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness in New York State. Both populations face significant challenges academically, with only 50 percent of students in the foster system and 69 percent of students experiencing homelessness graduating in four years (as compared 86 percent of all students).
Funding to support these students can bolster student success: for example, recent research conducted by TCF with current and former foster youth revealed that New York students in the foster system require more support to succeed. Providing and/or increasing academic, mental-health, and life-skills support for these students can go a long way in ensuring that they have the tools they need to succeed. Creating programming to support these students including building out student-led organizations of students with similar experiences can also help to provide a source of support throughout the school day. Importantly, ensuring that school staff have the appropriate training to understand how to best support these students through a trauma-responsive lens is also critical to student success. These interventions would be all the more possible with increased funding explicitly and exclusively for these students.
Any updates to the Foundation Aid formula must include a per-pupil weight for students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness to ensure that these students receive the extra funding and supports needed to thrive academically and socially in our schools. It is important that the weight be applied even if students fall into multiple categories. For example, students who are English language learners and in the foster system should receive funding to support their needs in both areas. The funding should also take into account school changes and variability regarding the number of students in the foster system and the number of students experiencing homelessness that a school might serve throughout the school year.
Finally, given the complex nature of the formula itself and the ever-changing needs of our public schools, ongoing review of the formula by independent experts and stakeholders will be essential to ensure it incorporates adequate, up-to-date measures of student need and provides equitable funding to districts across the state.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony and for considering the importance of funding and support for students in the foster system.
Tags: new york city, housing, foster care system, testimonial
Testimony: New York Should Recognize Needs of Low-income, Foster, and Homeless Students
On January 29, TCF fellow and Next100 senior policy entrepreneur Chantal Hinds submitted testimony to the New York State Senate Finance Committee and New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee in response to the committees’ joint legislative hearing on the 2025–2026 Executive Budget Proposal for Elementary and Secondary Education. In her testimony, a version of which you can read below, Hinds argues that the state’s student aid formula should explicitly account for students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness, citing their unique academic and social-emotional needs. The Century Foundation submitted this testimony to the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committee record.
On behalf of The Century Foundation (TCF), thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony regarding the 2025–2026 Executive Budget. My name is Chantal Hinds and I am a fellow at The Century Foundation (TCF). TCF is a progressive, independent think tank that conducts research, develops solutions, and drives policy change to make people’s lives better. TCF scholars have conducted research on education policy for over two decades and TCF’s research has influenced policy at the federal, state, and local levels including within New York State.
Ensuring that schools and school staff are equipped to meet the educational needs and challenges of students is critical to their success. Equitable and sufficient school funding helps to guarantee that every public school student receives an education on equal footing with their peers. Securing public education for all students—including students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness—starts with funding and ends with a thriving student population and bright futures for our youngest New Yorkers.
Governor Hochul and the State Legislature’s commitment to fully fund Foundation Aid for the first time in 2023 was welcome news after years of underfunding. However, the formula on which funding is based is seventeen years old and needs to be updated to keep pace with rising costs and the needs of students and schools today. The current formula does not fully account for various student populations including students with disabilities, English language learners, and low-income students. Additionally, the formula does not address the additional and unique needs of students in special circumstances like students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness.
Governor Hochul’s proposed changes to the formula to account for the needs of New York’s students are commendable. However her proposal to replace the “outdated 2000 Census poverty rate…with the most recent Census Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates [SAIPE] data” and to replace the “unreliable free- and reduced-price lunch data” with “economically disadvantaged data to better reflect the current population of low-income students” do not holistically or sufficiently address the needs of students in New York schools.
The SAIPE measure relies on the federal poverty threshold, which is very low at approximately $32,000 for a family of four. That income is far lower than the cost of living in New York leaving many students and families who are struggling to make ends meet, uncounted for purposes of school support. Any adjustments to the definitions of students in poverty must account for the costs of living across New York to ensure that no student who needs the support is left behind. The state should consider using differentiated weights for different concentrations of poverty, as recommended by the Rockefeller Institute, and add a new cost-of-living adjustment or a higher poverty threshold (e.g., a multiplier of the federal poverty level) for certain districts when determining which students should receive the “poverty weight” in different parts of the state. Additionally, any update to the poverty weight should include an update to the Regional Cost Index—as recommended by the New York State Board of Regents and the Rockefeller Institute—which accounts for differences in wages in different parts of the state but is nearly two decades out of date.
Along with using a more accurate and inclusive poverty measure, using “economically disadvantaged” to capture a whole host of students doesn’t fully address the needs of students that go above and beyond those of low-income students. An additional weight should be included in the formula to address the academic, social-emotional, and unique needs of students in the foster system and students who experience homelessness.
According to data from the state education department, there are a total of over 146,000 students in the foster system1 and students experiencing homelessness in New York State. Both populations face significant challenges academically, with only 50 percent of students in the foster system and 69 percent of students experiencing homelessness graduating in four years (as compared 86 percent of all students).
Funding to support these students can bolster student success: for example, recent research conducted by TCF with current and former foster youth revealed that New York students in the foster system require more support to succeed. Providing and/or increasing academic, mental-health, and life-skills support for these students can go a long way in ensuring that they have the tools they need to succeed. Creating programming to support these students including building out student-led organizations of students with similar experiences can also help to provide a source of support throughout the school day. Importantly, ensuring that school staff have the appropriate training to understand how to best support these students through a trauma-responsive lens is also critical to student success. These interventions would be all the more possible with increased funding explicitly and exclusively for these students.
Any updates to the Foundation Aid formula must include a per-pupil weight for students in the foster system and students experiencing homelessness to ensure that these students receive the extra funding and supports needed to thrive academically and socially in our schools. It is important that the weight be applied even if students fall into multiple categories. For example, students who are English language learners and in the foster system should receive funding to support their needs in both areas. The funding should also take into account school changes and variability regarding the number of students in the foster system and the number of students experiencing homelessness that a school might serve throughout the school year.
Finally, given the complex nature of the formula itself and the ever-changing needs of our public schools, ongoing review of the formula by independent experts and stakeholders will be essential to ensure it incorporates adequate, up-to-date measures of student need and provides equitable funding to districts across the state.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony and for considering the importance of funding and support for students in the foster system.
Notes
Tags: new york city, housing, foster care system, testimonial