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I can't understand why Long Island feels it is so unique when dealing with this issue. Why aren't other models from other states explored and considered? If there are schools in other states performing at the level of LI schools at a lower cost per pupil, why can't we learn from that?
Because NYS insists on being at the top of the "giveaways" to public sector unions. The other models you reference involve contracts that are much less generous (i.e. fair) and thus cost the taxpayer much less.
Consolidate or not, it won't affect anything. The only way to make a serious dent in school tax is to do something about the compensation packages.
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It continues to amaze me when this discussion arises how New Yorkers are the only ones who believe that maintaining 50+ districts in a county is more cost efficient than consolidating into 1 or 2. There is also the continued belief that "you're going to uproot a lot of students for nothing", how is that so? Unless the child is attending a school that is underutilized and would be better to combine with a similar school they would continue at their current schools.
One advantage of a county wide district is each high school is runs a specialty program such as Computer Science, Mass Comm, World Language Immersion etc. Students electing that curriculum are transported to/from the hosting school, every HS has at least one program. Its a lot easier than trying to replicated everything at every school and far more cost efficient. Same with Special Ed needs resources can be centered allowing greater access and opportunity to those that need them.
But ultimately nothing will come of any of it and the union will continue to bleed everyone dry one district at a time, for the children..
It continues to amaze me when this discussion arises how New Yorkers are the only ones who believe that maintaining 50+ districts in a county is more cost efficient than consolidating into 1 or 2. There is also the continued belief that "you're going to uproot a lot of students for nothing", how is that so? Unless the child is attending a school that is underutilized and would be better to combine with a similar school they would continue at their current schools.
One advantage of a county wide district is each high school is runs a specialty program such as Computer Science, Mass Comm, World Language Immersion etc. Students electing that curriculum are transported to/from the hosting school, every HS has at least one program. Its a lot easier than trying to replicated everything at every school and far more cost efficient. Same with Special Ed needs resources can be centered allowing greater access and opportunity to those that need them.
But ultimately nothing will come of any of it and the union will continue to bleed everyone dry one district at a time, for the children..
These are good ideas but what happens in reality is that local control is exerted anyway, and the better, more affluent regions find ways to get funding while the worse off schools get the shaft and the results are universally bad poor districts. When someone asked "why can't we do it the way everyone else does," this is what everyone else does. Fights over a pool of aid money to be doled out by the state as "equitably" as they can get away with governed by strict education laws. LI grovels too but to a smaller degree because the lions share comes from property taxes. Some districts get less than 10% of their budget from state aid. Some upstate get 99% of it from the state. LI pays for local control, period. With local control comes quality outcomes. Is the "quality" of LI schools mostly smoke and mirrors...some yes, some no...but by and large we have a region of well above average schools to go with our well above average taxes. That is the hand we're currently dealt. How to walk back the value vs cost proposition is really the problem...and I'm as guilty as most for bitching and moaning about what we pay...because I know why we pay so much...and it does not go directly to quality. It goes to onerous contractual obligations weighted by years of bad negotiating by those trusted to protect the taxpayer.
It continues to amaze me when this discussion arises how New Yorkers are the only ones who believe that maintaining 50+ districts in a county is more cost efficient than consolidating into 1 or 2. There is also the continued belief that "you're going to uproot a lot of students for nothing", how is that so? Unless the child is attending a school that is underutilized and would be better to combine with a similar school they would continue at their current schools.
One advantage of a county wide district is each high school is runs a specialty program such as Computer Science, Mass Comm, World Language Immersion etc. Students electing that curriculum are transported to/from the hosting school, every HS has at least one program. Its a lot easier than trying to replicated everything at every school and far more cost efficient. Same with Special Ed needs resources can be centered allowing greater access and opportunity to those that need them.
But ultimately nothing will come of any of it and the union will continue to bleed everyone dry one district at a time, for the children..
I don't think any rational person thinks multiple small districts is more cost efficient than one large district. Instead, they think the cost savings in moving to a single large district is overstated, and in practice, will be trivial.
But more importantly, the reason why countless small districts exist in all of NY (outside the 5 big cities) is because people want the sense of community that comes with a small, locally controlled, school district. They want their kids to attend the hometown school - where they are surrounded by families and kids who share their values and lifestyle choices. With a county-wide school district, your child's school experience can be significantly changed on the whim of an administrator or board. Their school can be changed at any time. Their classmates changed, ect. People don't want that. It's not just dollars and cents when it comes to people's kids. And as stated above, many people, including myself, do not believe material differences in property taxes will occur with some large countywide or regional district. Some savings - probably. Meaningful savings - no.
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"Let this year be over..."
(set 17 days ago)
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19,219 posts, read 17,078,565 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by monstermagnet
These are good ideas but what happens in reality is that local control is exerted anyway, and the better, more affluent regions find ways to get funding while the worse off schools get the shaft and the results are universally bad poor districts. When someone asked "why can't we do it the way everyone else does," this is what everyone else does. Fights over a pool of aid money to be doled out by the state as "equitably" as they can get away with governed by strict education laws. LI grovels too but to a smaller degree because the lions share comes from property taxes. Some districts get less than 10% of their budget from state aid. Some upstate get 99% of it from the state. LI pays for local control, period. With local control comes quality outcomes. Is the "quality" of LI schools mostly smoke and mirrors...some yes, some no...but by and large we have a region of well above average schools to go with our well above average taxes. That is the hand we're currently dealt. How to walk back the value vs cost proposition is really the problem...and I'm as guilty as most for bitching and moaning about what we pay...because I know why we pay so much...and it does not go directly to quality. It goes to onerous contractual obligations weighted by years of bad negotiating by those trusted to protect the taxpayer.
At least your honest with acknowledging that you are paying for the privilege to keep the control local but what are you really gaining? Depending on the district (and based on what posters on CD say) there seems to be a must shop around mentality to identify a district that provides ****** service/courses. With a county district there is potentially a broader opportunity of programs and SPED resources can be available for all who need it where smaller districts have to pick and choose what they can provide. Unlike NY we have no school tax our districts have to submit a budget to the county government for approval and operate within that budget. State provided dollars are based on a districts E-Rate which is based on your districts economic value, yes districts with more poverty get more dollars but that also gets diluted down in the larger districts. Excellent schools are everywhere and using US News the top 10+ are everywhere but NY, you know as I do that the parent(s) is a big factor in how well a student does and weighs far more than the school. Ultimately you have to deal with the unions abuses and that's something we do not have...
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 17 days ago)
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19,219 posts, read 17,078,565 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 987ABC
I don't think any rational person thinks multiple small districts is more cost efficient than one large district. Instead, they think the cost savings in moving to a single large district is overstated, and in practice, will be trivial.
But more importantly, the reason why countless small districts exist in all of NY (outside the 5 big cities) is because people want the sense of community that comes with a small, locally controlled, school district. They want their kids to attend the hometown school - where they are surrounded by families and kids who share their values and lifestyle choices. With a county-wide school district, your child's school experience can be significantly changed on the whim of an administrator or board. Their school can be changed at any time. Their classmates changed, ect. People don't want that. It's not just dollars and cents when it comes to people's kids. And as stated above, many people, including myself, do not believe material differences in property taxes will occur with some large countywide or regional district. Some savings - probably. Meaningful savings - no.
I understand your view but part of that is fear of going to school with those people (from that town), for the most part my kids have always attended what you call "hometown schools". I see the comments often that people think the child are assigned helter skelter all over the place , they're not you normally attend the schools near you. Now you may travel if you participate in a specialty program in high school but that's by your choice not the districts. Rezoning's may occur but that is normally because of attendance growth and the creation of new schools in that area, they don't send you cross county because their is room in a school at the other end, its not efficient and they try to keep transport times to a minimum.
I don't think any rational person thinks multiple small districts is more cost efficient than one large district. Instead, they think the cost savings in moving to a single large district is overstated, and in practice, will be trivial.
But more importantly, the reason why countless small districts exist in all of NY (outside the 5 big cities) is because people want the sense of community that comes with a small, locally controlled, school district. They want their kids to attend the hometown school - where they are surrounded by families and kids who share their values and lifestyle choices. With a county-wide school district, your child's school experience can be significantly changed on the whim of an administrator or board. Their school can be changed at any time. Their classmates changed, ect. People don't want that. It's not just dollars and cents when it comes to people's kids. And as stated above, many people, including myself, do not believe material differences in property taxes will occur with some large countywide or regional district. Some savings - probably. Meaningful savings - no.
I think that pretty much nails it as far summarizing the widely-held (and commonsense) reasons why county-wide consolidation is essentially a no-go from the get-go here on Long Island. Your point that folks realize there might be some minor savings via consolidation at the margins in our high cost locale - but that in no way offsets the downside of consolidation - is particularly well taken.
(At the same time, the topic of this fantasy thread asked about consolidation accompanied by a whopping 50% property tax decrease...that would certainly change the calculus for the average Long Islander...as would a fantasy 90% or 100% property tax decrease...)
Last edited by Quick Commenter; 05-01-2019 at 06:24 AM..
It continues to amaze me when this discussion arises how New Yorkers are the only ones who believe that maintaining 50+ districts in a county is more cost efficient than consolidating into 1 or 2. There is also the continued belief that "you're going to uproot a lot of students for nothing", how is that so? Unless the child is attending a school that is underutilized and would be better to combine with a similar school they would continue at their current schools.
One advantage of a county wide district is each high school is runs a specialty program such as Computer Science, Mass Comm, World Language Immersion etc. Students electing that curriculum are transported to/from the hosting school, every HS has at least one program. Its a lot easier than trying to replicated everything at every school and far more cost efficient. Same with Special Ed needs resources can be centered allowing greater access and opportunity to those that need them.
But ultimately nothing will come of any of it and the union will continue to bleed everyone dry one district at a time, for the children..
Others have responded, so I'll just ask, what do your teachers make over there and what are their benefits/pension like?
Quote:
Originally Posted by monstermagnet
I'm the other name. I'm fine being blocked by this 'not so closeted' teacher/union shill.
It's funny - if you and I are the same person, I should really reconsider these warm & fuzzies every time we agree on something. The disagreement we had a couple months ago about the 5-year deferred tax hike has thrown me for a loop though. I must be schizo.
I understand your view but part of that is fear of going to school with those people (from that town), for the most part my kids have always attended what you call "hometown schools". I see the comments often that people think the child are assigned helter skelter all over the place , they're not you normally attend the schools near you. Now you may travel if you participate in a specialty program in high school but that's by your choice not the districts. Rezoning's may occur but that is normally because of attendance growth and the creation of new schools in that area, they don't send you cross county because their is room in a school at the other end, its not efficient and they try to keep transport times to a minimum.
No one fears that children would be assigned schools helter skelter all over the place or that you will be sent cross county. They fear the breaking up of their home district community. That is all. I have schools that are very close to me that I wouldn't want my kids going to. Moreover, its also a long term problem. Families are buying houses before they have kids. That means it might be more than 20 years before their youngest kids graduate HS. In a county-wide or extremely large district, a lot can happen in 20 years.
As for speciality programs, the districts do pool resources to create some of the cost savings and economies of scale you speak of. BOCES programs are an example of this. Also, certain schools are very strong in certain areas - for example, educating autistic children - and accept kids from nearby districts on a contract basis.
I think that pretty much nails it as far summarizing the widely-held (and commonsense) reasons why county-wide consolidation is essentially a no-go from the get-go here on Long Island. Your point that folks realize there might be some minor savings via consolidation at the margins in our high cost locale - but that in no way offsets the downside of consolidation - is particularly well taken.
(At the same time, the topic of this fantasy thread asked about consolidation accompanied by a whopping 50% property tax decrease...that would certainly change the calculus for the average Long Islander...as would a fantasy 90% or 100% property tax decrease...)
And to illustrate that people on LI will support consolidation when it makes sense, look at the County Police Departments. I am assuming their is a cost savings vs. having many town and village departments. The average Long Islander probably doesn't care much about local control for police. Its a very different type of service than public schools. My point is that people on LI are not collectively irrational. They support consolidation when it makes sense for them, and are against it when it doesn't.
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