President Obama gets it. Earlier this month, he said: "There is nothing that will determine the quality of our future as a nation or the lives of our children more than the kind of education we provide them."

Since my last column, little has changed in New York. As of this writing, state lawmakers were back in Albany working to resolve what Gov. Paterson has identified as a $3.2 billion budget deficit.

As you know, the governor has proposed midyear cuts of $686 million to K-12 schools and another $177 million to public higher education. NYSUT is vigorously opposing these cuts: Enough is enough!

Education — as well as health care — is already feeling the pain of cuts and broken budget promises. SUNY, CUNY and community colleges have been particularly hard hit. Further reductions are just illogical at this time. Yes, the state's budget is in serious trouble, but as we have said before, cutting education — the engine to turn the economy around — will only worsen the situation.

All this is occurring while the administration in Washington tries to determine which states have their priorities in order as it decides on Race to the Top grants. Hopefully, New York's legislators will avoid sending the wrong message.

Health care

The president has also spoken out vigorously on health care reform. Perhaps more than any other issue, health care reform must be our priority. My last column celebrated the House of Representatives' passage of landmark health care reform: the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Now it's back to work for all of us. The differences between the House bill and Senate versions are significant. Senate Majority Leader Reid has just introduced a bill that, while moving in the right direction, has some serious flaws. Among them is an excise tax on employer-provided plans. This will only encourage employers to reduce benefits or pass the tax on to working women and men.

We know we can count on New York's senators — Schumer and Gillibrand — to help convince their colleagues that the final legislation must provide a robust public option, maintain quality benefits for those with coverage now, and make the nation's health care system work better for everyone.

Meanwhile, you can be sure that the five New York House members who failed to do the right thing — especially those first-termers who were elected with NYSUT's help — are hearing from us — and from you. Keep up the pressure.

Promising practices

This New York Teacher includes a story that illustrates three successful schools that use innovative ideas to improve student performance.

The first, the Charter School for Applied Technologies, a NYSUT affiliate, is located in Tonawanda, although it enrolls most of its students from the City of Buffalo.

When I met with the faculty there, it was clear they tied a great deal of their success to collaboration, common planning time — both horizontal and vertical — and a role in determining what goes on in their classes.

Buffalo's PS 53, the second school highlighted, is a very successful elementary school that was removed from the state's "watch list" as a result of the staff's ability to turn around student performance.

While planning and collaboration were important factors, Buffalo Teachers Federation President Phil Rumore gave great credit to reduced class size in leading to the school's improvement.

And, in Syracuse, the third example is the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School that highlights the beginning of the expansion of the "Say Yes" program by developing extensive after-school activities.

I've written about "Say Yes" before; and Education Secretary Duncan, as well as both of our national affiliates, see great potential in this promising program.

While all three are real examples of positive developments in providing a quality public education for every child, I'd like to concentrate on the two that service students from Buffalo. As I know you recognize, one of these schools is a public charter school and the second is a regular public elementary school.

Buffalo is a city where the dynamics of New York's charter school law play a significant role. Significant, it seems clear, not in supporting quality education, but in hampering it.

The Buffalo city public schools have been financially crippled by the more than $71 million siphoned off to charter schools.

All of us understand that when dollars follow individual students, it disproportionately impacts the schools that still must deal with the totality of providing an education for every child — their constitutional responsibility.

Charters, too, are faced with financial uncertainty and shortfalls under the law — shortfalls often, but not always, made up by significant grants from corporations and foundations.

Public education must be funded in a way that's fair to every child and that doesn't pit public school against public school, charter against school system — child against child.

Likewise, full accountability and transparency — requiring the same of charters and school systems with respect to financial disclosures, freedom of information requirements, student body makeup, curriculum, standards and assessment, and auditing obligations — are needed to shed light on the myths and realities for both charter schools and a community's public school system.

Achieving the ability to clearly identify the factors that lead to high-performing schools, whether charter or regular public schools, will go a long way to understanding how to improve low-performing schools.

It is in this context that decisions about Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Race to the Top, and state and local school budgets should be made.

It is in this context that what is needed to provide a quality public education for every child must be defined.