The vote on the school budget is today. The polls opened about an hour ago, at 11:00 a.m.
New York has built an education system that spends at elite levels, staffs at near private-college ratios, and pays accordingly--yet delivers results that are, at best, middling. . . .
If New York outshone every state in education, we could have a deep discussion about how much education we can afford. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Right now, New York's K-12 system produces mediocre results at exorbitant prices, and, unless something changes, it is only going to get worse. . . .
Given New York's financial resources, we should have the best education system in the world. Sadly, we lead the world in spending, not achievement. Until something changes, New York's students will continue being robbed of opportunities their parents and taxpayers paid for.
The polls are open until 8:00 p.m. The polling places are:
- Hudson Central Fire Station, 77 North Seventh Street
- Greenport, Stottville/Stockport, Ghent Greenport Community Center, 500 Town Hall Drive, Greenport
- Claverack, Livingston, Taghkanic A. B. Shaw Fire House, 67 NY-23, Claverack
• Cost of living adjustment missing. Comparing $100k NY teacher pay to Mississippi or Texas without adjusting for housing and regional COLA inflates the gap. Real purchasing power is much closer than nominal salaries suggest.
ReplyDelete• Tiny-district outliers are arithmetic, not waste. Newcomb, Fire Island, Bridgehampton, Whitesville have handful-of-kids enrollments. Fixed costs (one building, one principal, heat, insurance) don’t scale down. The real question is consolidation, not profligacy.
• Demographic mix ignored. NY has a much higher share of English Language Learners and concentrated urban poverty than Florida or Texas. Demographic-adjusted NAEP comparisons usually move NY up. Doesn’t erase the problem, but the headline comparison overstates it.
• Mississippi comparison cherry-picks one metric. The “Mississippi Miracle” in 4th grade reading is real, but it’s one data point in one subject. Mississippi still trails NY badly on absolute outcomes for older students and on graduation rates.
• Ukraine budget comparison is pure theater. Different country, different cost structure, mostly wartime defense spending. Tells you nothing about whether NY schools are efficient.
• Harvard tuition comparison is misleading. Harvard’s $59k sticker price isn’t its actual cost per student. Real per-student spending at Harvard (with endowment subsidy) is well north of $100k. Apples to oranges.
• Private university faculty ratio is a weird benchmark. K-12 and higher ed have completely different staffing needs (special ed, aides, ELL specialists, etc.). Comparing the two implies a waste narrative that the data alone doesn’t support.
• No discussion of where the money actually goes. Pension obligations, healthcare for retirees, special education mandates, and Triborough Amendment dynamics drive a huge share of NY school spending. Ignoring that makes it look like teachers are just getting rich.
• The real argument goes unmade. NY spending has outpaced inflation for two decades while NAEP scores flatlined. That’s the productivity story. They gesture at it but bury it under weaker comparisons.
"The real argument goes unmade. NY spending has outpaced inflation for two decades while NAEP scores flatlined. That’s the productivity story. They gesture at it but bury it under weaker comparisons."
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm more and more of the opinion that every side of any argument concerning the HCSD is either not asking the real questions or is basing their stance on long-held premises that, while sounding plausible, may in fact be faulty.
I don't foresee these dug trenches disappearing any time soon and so while these pointless arguments keep happening, maybe a subset of people that actually care predominantly about excellent education (with costs being secondary) should start looking at why increased funding isn't funnelling into better outcomes and what maybe might.
It seems that currently we get the worst of both worlds.
Max - how do you expect the Hudson vs Greenport vs Claverack polling stations to differ on the budget vote?
DeleteI did not expect it the way it went. Greenport surprised me the most. My town got hit with a school tax increase very hard last year (at least a 50% increase townwide). I talked to my neighbor yesterday. He not only has a kid attending the HCSD, he himself is a member of the clerical staff. And yet, he was absolulely firm on voting down the budget.
DeleteI was convinced Greenport would vote it down, but the ratio of Yes to No votes is almost identical to Hudson's. Claverack's (with an appalling turn-out) is even more lop-sided and they will pay the price later this year but don't know it yet: A combination of a 6% budget increase alongside their equalization rate jumping from near 70% to 100% will make for a bad awakening.
What this means for the upcoming years is that the pain is evidently not yet bad enough for the majority to ask the real questions: Why are our kids unprepared when they graduate from the HCSD and is there something we can do about it?
My no vote would not have provided an answer but I had hoped that a budget failing at the polls would provide an impetus to focus on these questions. We're still a long way out. Next year, the margins will get closer once Claverackians see their new school tax bill. But it may still not be enough to send the right message.