Stephen
Kershnar
New York School Budgets: Are voters on
drugs?
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
May
25, 2015
This
past week New York voters approved of the budgets for 99% of the state’s 669
school districts. This beat last year’s 98% passage rate. This is a problem.
A
little context is in order. Writing in Syracuse.com,
Sarah Moses reports that in 2015 the taxpayers in the school districts paid on
average (median) approximately $23,000 per student. That is not a misprint. Note
this only applies to school districts where taxpayers get to vote.
New
York spends more money per student than any other state. According to a 2015
study by the New York state Policy Office, Education Team, and the Division of
Budget, the state spends 84% more than the national average and roughly $8,000
more per pupil per year (2012-2013 figures). This is not just a matter of its
just outspending Southern states. It vastly outspent neighboring states,
including New Jersey (13% more), Connecticut (20% more), and Massachusetts (38%
more). Note that these states are richer in that they have significantly higher
per capita and per household incomes.
Fredonia
and Dunkirk are no exceptions. In 2015-2016, Fredonia will spend $21,423 per
student, which is an impressive 6.5% increase in per pupil expenditure in a
single year. Dunkirk is only slightly better, spending $20,580 per student and
with a 2% increase in per pupil spending.
You
might think taxpayers are getting a lot for their money. You’d be wrong. The
New York State Department of Education found that in 2014, roughly 64% of grades
3-8 students were not proficient in math and 69% were not proficient in
English. Again, the numbers are not misprints. New York is ranked 32nd
or worse in 4th and 8th grade math and English scores
(bottom 40% of its class). In 2012-2013, roughly a quarter of New York’s high
school students failed to graduate high school in four years, which resulted in
New York being ranked 33rd in the country. Worse, only 38% of
graduating seniors have scores indicating that they are ready for college and
this likely overestimates overall college readiness.
Not
only is there little accountability at the district level, there is little accountability
for teachers. In 2013-2014, roughly 96% of teachers were rated effective and a
mere 0.7% (sadly, not a misprint) were rated ineffective. Side note: teachers
can be rated neither effective nor ineffective. Does anyone seriously think
that only 0.7% of workers in any industry are ineffective, especially in a
government-run industry? Does this jive with your experience at work?
This
result is made even more suspicious when one realizes that education majors
have, on average, among the lowest SAT scores in college and that intelligence (which
tends to correlate with SATs) is a fairly good predictor of job performance. I should note that many teachers did
not major in education.
These
sorts of figures should anger teachers as much as the rest of us. There are
many highly effective and hard-working teachers and it should piss them off
when their good works are reversed by ineffective and unaccountable peers.
It’s
clear that that taxpayers are paying a lot for a little. Public school
apologists will quickly respond that even good teachers can’t make up for low
intelligence, poor parenting, or economic and cultural deprivation. They’ll quickly
add that far too much of the money goes to disabled students and this is mandated
by law. They’ll likely point out that the money isn’t going toward teachers,
pointing out that, according to National Center for Education Statistics, from 1970-2012,
non-teaching staff have increased vastly more than the increase in students or
teaching staff. This might all be true, I suspect much of it is, yet this doesn’t
explain why New York students are doing worse than over half the other states
or why it can’t spend at the level of Connecticut or Massachusetts.
My
main problem with the level of education spending isn’t just the poor results,
it’s the crushing tax burden it requires. Even if New York were to have the top
ranked schools and excellent accountability, the taxes needed to pay for this
level of spending are simply too much. People have projects in life. They want
to get married, have children, invest in their businesses, and go on vacation. Requiring
they take a few thousand that could be earmarked for these things and hand them
over to the schools is unreasonable even if the schools were operating at peak
efficiency. It is unreasonable for the same reason that forcing citizens to
spend a few hours every week laboring at the school would be unreasonable. Many
people would rather spend their time and energy elsewhere and there’s nothing
wrong with that.
For some
people, their tax burden is on par with their mortgage. For some retirees, the
taxes painfully cut into their fixed income. For the vast majority, it’s an
obnoxious imposition. The fact that parents of school age children seem to incredibly
ungrateful for the amount of hours their neighbors had to work to pay the
roughly $23,000 a year for their children to go to a public school just adds
insult to injury.
One
way to see that the spending is unreasonable is to ask whether parents of
school age children would choose to spend $20,000 or more a year on their
child’s education with all the bells and whistles (for example, an array of
sports teams, gym, art, music, theater, nurses, school psychologists, and
guidance counselors) or would they opt for a less expensive package, perhaps
one that focused on the core of a successful education (for example, math,
English, and history)? Almost undoubtedly they would opt for the less expensive
package and if parents don’t think the extra money is worth it, neither should taxpayers.
