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"When I think about the technologies and efficiencies that are being implemented in other districts around the country, I really begin to laugh at LI. Sometimes I feel that our facilities are 10-15 years behind other parts of the country. Sure, our students do well, but that could be from the simple fact that the median income here is high and many have 2 parent families. It may not be indicative of the quality of schools at all, but rather of the influence of their parents."
SIB and I think this topic is worth of its own thread. Our teachers here are heavily protected by unions. They do not face the accountability that they do in other areas of the country. Our school facilities tend to be very dated and old given the age of this region. It's not as if our schools are wired with state of the art technology.
So, is the success really the simple result of LI having high median incomes and generally having more stable 2 parent families? If we took our student population and sent them to a district in VA that is state of the art...would they be doing even better?
I think the bottom line in all of this tax argument comes down to DOLLARS INVESTED VS. RETURN. Are we really getting our money's worth? Or, could we be doing better?
I personally feel that if we could break apart the unions, and allow for more strong competition in the schools (and teacher accountability), that would be a start. We could also save tax dollars by getting rid of the wasteful and inefficient teachers that just collect paychecks. There are gym teachers all over LI collecting over 100k a year to blow whistles and ref basketball games. What if we could pay half that and use that 50k for infrastructure and technology improvements in the schools?
i agree 110%, how do we break up the union? is it just a matter of SD committee not signing contracts and hire teachers on a individual basis? how much influence does the union have? can they influence elections of school committee members?
I actually wondered why some school districts are called "union-free " in their names when this is not the case.
ME TOO~!!
I don't know the answer to this question, but I think the tide is starting to turn. A couple of years ago there was an article in Newsday about parents being so-o-o-o upset that the little darlings weren't getting into "top" colleges because of the saturation factor of Long Island kids at these schools. It's almost like being from LI is now working against people - if Harvard has 10 spots open and 10 kids from Long Island qualified to get in, and 1 kid from Wyoming, guess who is getting the 10th spot? And although people from LI just can't accept it, the performance gap is closing and schools elsewhere are offering the same and sometimes better and more up-to-date choices. Yes, it's true, most LI school districts will never see a cut in the arts, library, sports, or bussing...but how much is it all REALLY worth?
This is the same question that applies to all of the Tri-State area.
Over compensated teachers, administrators, janitors, not enough technology or skills being passed onto to the students. The tide of changing this is not happening quick enough.
This isn't about schools, it's about taxes. At least be honest. You want to cut taxes any way possible. I can't blame people for being frustrated, but the constant spin on why LI schools are good and attempting to not give ONE SINGLE SHRED of credit to teachers or school admin gets pathetic after awhile.
Yes we can do what we are doing for less, but if you think cutting taxes here down to bumbledook VA levels isn't going to negatively impact the schools at least a little bit, think again. If you think paying teachers 40K a year here on LI is going to get the same caliber of applicant, you're definitely wrong. Could we cut comp 10-15% and still have the same schools? Probably. Most of you are paying around 65% of your property tax bill to the schools. Of that, what percentage is teachers salaries? Let's say 80% for arguments sake.
So your tax bill is 10K, $6500 is for the school, $5200 of that is teachers salaries, and we cut them by 15%..that's a $780 savings for the person with a 10K tax bill. Money's money, but is that really going to change whether someone can afford to live here? Now let's say you cut all the teachers salaries in half and save yourself $2600. Now you've got teachers who live with their parents and their parents have $7400 tax bills. It's not that complicated to me.
Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't be able to cut all property taxes by 10-15%, but the vitriol to dollars ratio on this subject is pretty high.
I don't know the answer to this question, but I think the tide is starting to turn. A couple of years ago there was an article in Newsday about parents being so-o-o-o upset that the little darlings weren't getting into "top" colleges because of the saturation factor of Long Island kids at these schools. It's almost like being from LI is now working against people - if Harvard has 10 spots open and 10 kids from Long Island qualified to get in, and 1 kid from Wyoming, guess who is getting the 10th spot? And although people from LI just can't accept it, the performance gap is closing and schools elsewhere are offering the same and sometimes better and more up-to-date choices. Yes, it's true, most LI school districts will never see a cut in the arts, library, sports, or bussing...but how much is it all REALLY worth?
Boy, this is a strange argument you are making. Universities are over-saturated with qualified LI applicants, so we should make the schools worse so more can get it?
I do not like to implication that all union teachers are evil and unions are evil. As if Long Island school teachers are all lazy, overpaid and basically stealing. That is simply not the norm, and you can't begrudge a teacher who lays out the money on up through a Masters degree, takes their lumps in some crap district in NYC, taking flight to more pay and a better district. We would all do that. At some point you might need to acknowledge that many of these successful Long Island districts might have talented staff. Egads! Yes, we do need to cut taxes, yes, schools are a large part of this expense, but union busting and taking pitch forks to incompetence are extremes. Reform begins with compromise.
We have an entire extra layer of government that is fraught with patronage, long-term state pension impact and waste that most of these other areas you are referring to also do not have to support. We have also bashed the cop pay on this board ad nauseum. We can probably get 10-15% from all of these areas, and in opinion I would go further and say get rid of most of county government. Everybody else in this country gets by without it...
To your thread topic...I would venture a guess that any area in the country with a large proportion of 2 parent families and (when adjusting for COLA) high median incomes would show similar success. I would venture to guess that these areas in VA fit the same profile as LI. A lot of technology investment is behind in LI but you are also comparing LI to younger growth areas in the US, not one of the oldest suburbs in the nation. Hard, in our current aged infrastructure state, to make these expensive upgrades. I do think LI districts would benefit from pooling administrative functions and bidding them out to third party, such as custodial, security, back office processes and have it run county wide, etc. That along with a good forensic accountant to look at everyone's books would probably be a good start...
A union free school district is a district resulting from a "union" of multiple common school districts, "free" from the restrictions that previously barred them from operating high schools. Union free school districts are governed by a board of education composed of between three and nine members.
I'm actually gonna go out on a limb and say the success of LI's schools are overwhelmingly due to most of these kids being part of a succesful, middle or upper middle class environment where most of their peers are highly motivated and there is stability at home. That is not to discredit the ability of the teachers on LI, but when we have over 90% of our schools performing amongst the top in the nation (this isn't an actual fact, I'm just saying...) and then this huge disparity of districts like Wyandanch, Hempstead, Freeport, etc. - where schools have the same exact budgets, same exact teachers, same exact resources yet the students perform horribly, are disinterested in learning and have an incredible drop out rate....what's the only difference? Outside factors, not the schools themselves.
JRP - Didn't you watch Season 4 of The Wire
dman72 makes a great point about the actual math, though....I really don't think we're going to get the same caliber of educators at 30-40k a year, and that's likely what it would take to see any legitimate savings.
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