By William F. Hammond Jr.
Friday, September 26, 2003
Pataki ally Vows to put Vouchers on Agency Will Press The issue in comission.
Albany - A prominent member of Governor Pataki’s education reform commission is calling for the introduction of tuition vouchers
in New York, saying competition is the key to improving public schools.
Randy Daniels, Mr. Pataki’s secretary of state, said he would like the commission to study a “total overhaul” of education.
He proposed giving parents more choice about where their children go to school, both through voucher programs in certain districts
and by encouraging the development of more charter schools, which are privately run but publicly financed.
Mr. Daniels’ support for vouchers gives new life to a reform idea that is catching on in other cities - including, most recently
Washington, D.C. - but which has been considered the “third rail” of New York politics.
Few state officials have been willing to contemplate spending public money on private schools because of strong opposition from
the teachers unions - one of the most powerful forces in state government - and because of concern about blurring the separation of
church and state.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that a voucher program in Cleveland did not violate the First Amendment. And a growing list
of liberal Democrats, including Washington Mayor Anthony Williams and Senator Feinstein of California, see them as the surest way for
children to escape failing schools.
“It’s certainly something I’m going to put on the table,” Mr. Daniels said in an interview with The New York Sun. “I think we need
to expand competition as much as possible because that is the only way we are going to get meaningful, sustainable reform. Competition
is what is missing.”
“If you want a model of how we need to reform primary and secondary education, look at higher education in New York - which I
believe is the best in the world,” Mr. Daniels said.
“You have competition between public - and private - sector institutions. There is no monopoly. And that competition means that
parents and children can exercise a whole range of options to get the kind of education that’s best for their child. That does not
exist in primary and secondary education right now,” he said.
‘Vouchers are a way to force the system to do things more productively.’
A proponent of vouchers, Thomas Carroll of the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability, called Mr. Daniel’s public
statements “a tremendous breakthrough.”
He’s the only statewide official who has overtly come out for vouchers,” Mr. Carroll said. “He has tremendous influence within
the Pataki administration. And he’s a potential and credible gubernatorial candidate if Pataki doesn’t run again.”
Mr. Daniels, and African - American who switched to Republican from Democrat last year, has said he would probably run for governor
in 2006, but only if Mr. Pataki doesn’t seek re-election and Mayor Giuliani doesn’t enter the race.
The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, a member of the governor’s education commission, said Mr.
Daniel’s comments on vouchers surprised and disappointed her.
“My impression was we were not going to engage in intense ideological battles,” Ms. Weingarten said. “If that’s where Randy Daniels
is going, that means it’s going to be a political commission as opposed to one that is attempting to solve this problem. I can’t
imagine that’s what the governor was trying to do here.”
Mr. Pataki’s press office has no comment on Mr. Daniels’ comments. The governor, who pushed a charter school bill through the
Legislature in 1998, has not taken a public stand on vouchers. But of the 16 people he has appointed to his commission - which will
have its first meeting in October - at least six are on record as voucher proponents.
The chairman of the commission, Frank Zarb, said the panel’s first duty is to determine how much money it will take to comply with
a recent ruling by the Court of Appeals, which determined that New York City’s schools aren’t providing the “sound, basic education”
mandated by the state constitution.
In addition, the governor has asked the commission to study other issues, such as innovative ways of distributing money and
managing schools, Mr. Zarb said.
“If there’s a debate to be had on the subject of vouchers then it should be had,” he said. I personally have a completely open mind,
but I don’t consider it right now to be anywhere near our first priority.”
The director of the coalition behind the school-funding suit, Michael Rebell of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, said he hopes the
commission stays focused on the “major issue.”
“The case had to do with whether the New York City public school system is receiving sufficient funding, and I think that’s the
core concern here,” Mr. Rebell said.
“I’m not saying that in some larger reform scheme one couldn’t consider the idea. Mr. Daniels is putting forward. But I don’t think
that’s the mandate of this commission,” he said.
A senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute, Sol Stern, argued that spending more money on schools without reforming them would be
pointless.
“Vouchers are a way to force the system to do things more productively,” said Mr. Stern, the author of “Breaking Free:
Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice.” Any economist will tell you that increasing productivity is as good a way
as getting more resources into an enterprise as putting more money in.”
ALBANY, Dec. 15 - The United States Commerce Department has upheld the Pataki administration’s opposition to a proposed 425-mile
natural-gas pipeline from Lake Erie to Westchester County, agreeing that the state has the right to prevent it from crossing the
Hudson River into Westchester at a proposed spot, state and federal officials said on Monday.
The ruling does not mean that the $700 million project to build a Millenium Pipeline cannot go forward along some other route,
a possibility that Secretary of State Randy A. Daniels said he hoped could happen.
Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans said in a 39-page decision dated Friday that the developers must choose an alternative route
that does not harm fish and wildlife habitats or endanger New York City’s water supply.
The decision was a victory for many Westchester residents. Mr. Daniels, who oversees the state’s coastal management, had determined
that the way the pipeline was to thread its way along the bottom of the Hudson River would threaten fish in Haverstraw Bay and deal a
serious blow to an effort to rebuild the Croton waterfront. Others were concerned that an explosion along the route could knock out
power to the city or incinerate schools that were close by.
“I think it’s a very significant victory for common sense in New York, and I am very pleased with the secretary’s decision because
it upheld my view that there is a reasonable alternative to this proposed route,” Mr. Daniels said on Monday. “We have made suggestions
on how to fix the problem, and we stand ready to achieve that.”
Kelly Merritt, a spokesman for the pipeline’s builder, the Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation of Fairfax, Va., expressed disappointment
in the federal commerce secretary’s decision. He said the company was considering its options and had not yet decided whether to pursue an
appeal in Federal District Court.
“We continue to contend that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s analysis and conclusion is correct: crossing the Hudson
River at Haverstraw Bay is the only viable option for constructing this pipeline in a safer and environmentally sound manner,”
Mr. Merritt said in a written statement. “The Department of Commerce’s ruling today assumes that we can build the pipeline using a
route that FERC fully considered and specifically rejected as infeasible.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had approved the pipeline in 2001, on the condition that it receive state and local
approval. The state objected, however, saying that adverse environmental effects along with certain parts of the route were
inconsistent with New York’s coastal management program. In its appeal, the pipeline company asked Mr. Evans to override New York’s
objection.
Mr. Evans could have overridden the state if he had found three things: that the pipeline furthered the national interest; that the
national interest outweighed any coastal effects; and that there was no reasonable alternative. Separately, he could have overruled
the state if he had decided the pipeline was necessary for national security, which was not a factor in this case.
“Ensuring a reliable energy supply is one of the Bush administration’s highest priorities, but we are also committed to protecting
the environment,” Mr. Evans said in a written statement. “My decision reflects both of these goals.”
As part of the back and forth between state and federal officials, the state, as required by law, had suggested at least eight
other alternatives for crossing the Hudson, officials said. Mr. Daniels said deciding where to cross the river was the main question.
Four of the alternatives, which would cross the Piermont marsh, and another that would cross Hook Mountain State Park, are unacceptable
from and environmental perspective, said Aaron Troodler, a spokesman for Assemblyan Ryan Scott Karben, a Democrat from Rockland County.
Still, Mr. Daniels said he generally supported the pipeline concept because “we need the energy.” He added: “What I am opposed to is a
route that endangers the environment. I sought to end this route, not end the project.”
