Last month, 566 voters in the Hudson City School District approved a $58.5 million budget for the 2025-2026 school year. There are about 1,600 students enrolled in HCSD, so that budget works out to about $36,562 per student. Most taxpayers would agree that is a lot to spend for what seems to be the dismal performance of the district, but the frightening news is that HCSD is not unique in its inability to deliver a satisfactory return on the taxpayers' investment. An article published by the Empire Center earlier this week shows the problem is statewide: "New York's K-12 Problem." The following is quoted from the article:
New York has an education problem that no one really likes to talk about: it spends more than any other state or country in the world yet achieves mediocre results at best. . . .
Based on the Empire Center's report on recent school district budgets, next school year educating one K-12 student will cost taxpayers $35,000. This is up from 2022-2023 when, based on the US Census Bureau data it was $30,000, nearly double the US average, surpassing Massachusetts by 30 percent and New Jersey by 15 percent.
The article is recommended reading, although it offers no recommendations for solving the problem beyond this:
If state lawmakers are serious about improving schools, they should do two things. First, admit that New York has a problem with K-12 education. Second, recall that $35.000 per student adds up to $90 billion. Before asking taxpayers for more, New York's leaders should be figuring out how to get a decent return on this massive investment.
If you're surprised by this news, it means: 1) your local media does not pay any attention to the real issues about public education; 2) the national media does not pay any attention to the real issues about public education, and 3) this recent piece in the NYT has it right: Has America Given Up on Children’s Learning? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/us/education-politics-learning.html
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