New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa testified Wednesday that Gov. Kathy Hochul hasn’t presented a “clear vision” for her plan to revamp the Foundation Aid formula. The comments came at a joint budget hearing to examine Hochul’s funding proposal for elementary and secondary education.

In a discussion with reporters after the hearing, Rosa was careful not to step on Hochul’s toes, deferring to the governor’s vague suggestion that more changes to the formula will be coming in future years.

In what she described as initial steps in redoing the complex formula, Hochul chose to update 25-year-old Census data to numbers from 2020, and to change the way the state calculates how many low-income students a district while driving more aid to low-wealth districts.

“I think she said 'stay tuned,' something to that effect,” Rosa said. “A journey is a roadmap, which means this is the beginning, and that means there are going to be stages to developing a new formula.”

In her oral and written testimony, Rosa was more critical, suggesting Hochul’s plan lacks a clear vision and some of the changes proposed were never road-tested.

“The executive budget's proposed modifications to Foundation Aid represent meaningful, but minor progress,” her testimony reads. “These changes constitute an initial step, and modernizing this intricate formula requires a clear, long-term vision. We have not yet seen this vision; planning needs to start now.”

The education department had initially hoped for a longer study than the one-year evaluation by conducted the Rockefeller Institute last year. That proposal that would have involved modeling various changes over two-to-three years, and NYSED is still advocating for further research in addition to the Rockefeller Institute’s recommendations.

“Further research is needed to validate these proposed adjustments and develop a more rigorous, data-driven framework for determining appropriate formula weights,” she wrote.

Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, said she got the impression that lawmakers would like to see the legislature go further with the formula as they present their rebuttals in March.

“They’re going to continue to add on to that by looking at regional cost, weighting for English language learners. I think there is a lot more that they see that we can do,” she said.

On the governor’s plan to institute a bell-to-bell cell phone ban in schools, lawmakers indicated bipartisan support, to an extent. Some Republicans, however, expressed concern about district choice, as well as safety in the event of an emergency.

Person, who was a driving force behind the ban, is clear that bell-to-bell is the only way to go.

“On both sides of the aisle, everybody is willing to do what is best for our students, and when you look at the research, when you look at the data, it’s very clear that distraction-free learning environments are what is best for kids,” she said.

While Rosa backed the need to reduce distractions in the classroom, she seemed to lean into at least some of that concern over district autonomy.

“We are clearly interested in making sure that schools and districts have a sense of ownership over this process,” she said after testifying that the shift should involve such input along with media literacy training for students.

Rosa also faced questions not from lawmakers, but reporters about a salary increase of more than $150,000 finalized this month. The increase brought her annual salary to $489,000, as first reported by the Times Union.

“You can look at our process, and our process was according to law exactly, you can talk to our general counsel,” she said.

Rosa further defended the increase, citing her dual role overseeing the state Education Department as well as the University of the State of New York, while also attempting to draw comparisons between her pay and benefits package and that of superintendents across the state.

“I hold two titles and 2.7 million kids, and I’m going to make less than somebody who has 3,600 kids?” she said. “I have a library, I have a museum, the school for the deaf, school for the blind. It is not just a P-12 space.”

Rosa citing her responsibility over the State Museum comes as NYSED’s management of the state’s cultural education department has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks.

Hochul proposed a $150 million overhaul of the museum in her executive budget after decades of what some state lawmakers have described as mismanagement of the facility under the education department, despite some action being taken in recent years.