Why do we need 126 school districts on Long Island? (Brookhaven: 2009, lawyer)

[nbres]

Why do we need 126 school districts on Long Island?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/ny...ef=long-island

If Long Islanders are serious about lowering the cost of living here and reducing our enormous and regressive property tax burden then it is time to consolidate the 126 current school districts down to two or three districts.

I propose that there should be:

1. Nassau County School District
2. Western Suffolk County School District (the five western towns)
3. Eastern Suffolk County School District (the five eastern towns)

[llama8]

I'm not so sure that is the answer. Look at the disaster that is the NYC public schools. Larger districts have more problems. Plus, it could negatively affect property values which are partly based on school district. As a teacher, I think education would suffer greatly. Alrhoug tax wise it could work, education wise it would be a disaster.

[KellyFG]

I agree, consolidation is the way to go. I'd be happy if Nassau had 3 or 4 districts & suffolk had 7 or 8. Even that would be a vast improvement.

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by nbres

Why do we need 126 school districts on Long Island?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/ny...ef=long-island

If Long Islanders are serious about lowering the cost of living here and reducing our enormous and regressive property tax burden then it is time to consolidate the 126 current school districts down to two or three districts.

I propose that there should be:

1. Nassau County School District
2. Western Suffolk County School District (the five western towns)
3. Eastern Suffolk County School District (the five eastern towns)

That would never pass, you may as well just do one PS like the city.

I do think what we should have is School Districts that align with our Councilmanic Districts. (4-5 towns per etc) with the Councilpeople as the Liason between the Admins and the people.

That way most districts will absorb at least one underperformer and drag it up to par.



crooks

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

That would never pass, you may as well just do one PS like the city.

I do think what we should have is School Districts that align with our Councilmanic Districts. (4-5 towns per etc) with the Councilpeople as the Liason between the Admins and the people.

That way most districts will absorb at least one underperformer and drag it up to par.



crooks

That would be a good start. One argument against it would be that people who live in underperforming districts are near other underperformers -- do we start busing children from one area such as Shirley to Mount Sinai, PJ or 3V -- or vice versa? That would be the bus ride from Heck! According to Mapquest, the distance from Ward Melville to WM Floyd is just shy of 20 miles.

Someone else suggested 7 or 8 districts on Suffolk; I can't see that working by virtue of the size of Suffolk -- Brookhaven alone is the size of Nassau county, with a population in excess of 450,000 people.

[Chrisk327]

I don't buy the education will suffer from less districts. I think the consolidation needs to be from the administrative end. How will combining purchasing, maintance, payroll, hiring, etc hurt the kids?

I don't have a problem with school officials earning a decent wage. I'm probably the only person who see that a superintendant's salry isn't far out of line. I just think that they're responsible for too few schools for their pay grade and they have too many assistants.


How come other states can do so much with so much less? Cost of living I don't buy. I can go to many lower cost areas and salaries aren't THAT much different, maybe 10-20%. Someone will chime in about how states support the SD's in other areas, but our state taxes are among the highest as well. Where does all the money go?

RE: property values. I'm not saying that we have to bus the kids from Syosset to high school in Wyndanch, I'm just saying why can't we make the districts much larger and then the division is more by HS not district.

[longislandmike]

It's about Power and Empire Building for patronage.

The lawyer "double-dipping" scandal that was FINALLY uncovered, is proof of this.

It has NOTHING to do, with Education, or the quality thereof.

The next time someone talks about "______fill in the blank...the Children", tune your ears in, to what they are REALLY talking about, and you find it in the subtext.

[DeadPool1998]

Give reasons why there shouldn't be that many districts.

[longislandmike]

Originally Posted by DeadPool1998

Give reasons why there shouldn't be that many districts.

Like anything it's about $$$$$$.

Here's something interesting to look through....

www.emsc.nysed.gov/mgtserv/sch_dist_org/REORGANIZATION.ppt

[AlexisT]

County wide districts would be a disaster. That's too large to administer effectively. I can't think of any school system with 1M+ residents that has an efficient administration. You'd wind up having subdistricts and other levels of admin.

I do think we need to consolidate. The current system is grossly inefficient and results in huge tax disparities between districts with good tax bases and districts with poor ones (not to mention numbers of students relative to taxable property).

Long Islanders are afraid of change and ceding "local control" which has scuppered reform in the past. That has to change.