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56 districts on that list. Each one has a superintendent making upwards of $200K. $200K x 56 = move to North Carolina.
So that's my support. NYC has 1.1 million students with only one chancellor. I don't understand why you bring up the square miles for, that means nothing.
NYC has one chancellor (who is double-dipping and earning over $400K) plus a leadership team of 15 who are each pulling down in the $200K range. If LI districts were to share superintendents, you're reducing expenses a little, but still not eliminating the large scale problem -- pensions, benefits, teacher salaries, unfunded state mandates, and the fact that we send dollars to Albany and get back pocket change.
Square mileage and population density mean a lot. Think about it....how many more students in close proximity to schools in unified NYC complete with ample public transport to move students as opposed to elsewhere.
Rhode Island has 5 counties which means there are multiple school districts per county in a state which is 1/2 the size of Suffolk County -- the county you propose become one unified county district. There is disconnect when a district head is 60 or 70 miles from a school.
I live in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk, which is about 1/2 the size of Rhode Island which has 36 dustricts; Brookhaven has 18 school districts -- many of them are already large.
Interesting trivia tidbit: Most recent data I can find is that 3 of the top 10 employers in Brookhaven are 3 of the largest districts: Sachem, Three Village, and William Floyd, respectively.
NYC has one chancellor (who is double-dipping and earning over $400K) plus a leadership team of 15 who are each pulling down in the $200K range. If LI districts were to share superintendents, you're reducing expenses a little, but still not eliminating the large scale problem -- pensions, benefits, teacher salaries, unfunded state mandates, and the fact that we send dollars to Albany and get back pocket change.
Square mileage and population density mean a lot. Think about it....how many more students in close proximity to schools in unified NYC complete with ample public transport to move students as opposed to elsewhere.
Rhode Island has 5 counties which means there are multiple school districts per county in a state which is 1/2 the size of Suffolk County -- the county you propose become one unified county district. There is disconnect when a district head is 60 or 70 miles from a school.
I live in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk, which is about 1/2 the size of Rhode Island which has 36 dustricts; Brookhaven has 18 school districts -- many of them are already large.
Interesting trivia tidbit: Most recent data I can find is that 3 of the top 10 employers in Brookhaven are 3 of the largest districts: Sachem, Three Village, and William Floyd, respectively.
The Long Island district superintendents themselves have leadership teams also which could be eliminated in a county-wide consolidation. Many of their multiple assistant superintendents earn upwards of 200K each and hundreds of other duplicative (across Long Island) central office hangers-on earn upwards of 150K+ benefits. It is not the mere elimination of superintendent positions that earns real cost savings...it its the duplicative central office staffs.
One thing that has not been mentioned here is that NYC DOE grossly underinvests in quality of instruction. By default, schools simply do not get even the bare minimum to give kids an acceptable education.
Where NYC schools do perform well, it usually comes with a heavy price in the form of "miscellaneous fees", fundraisiers and other ways to extract cash from enrolling families. These extra funds are then used to pay for things the DOE cannot afford like really good teachers aides, smaller class sizes, classroom supplies, art studios and science labs, enrichment classes and so on - things that are already given in good LI school districts.
When you add these fees up with NYC RE taxes and income taxes (which are punitive to those in higher income brackets), you're almost close to what those in suburban school districts spend.
Rhode Island is a state made up of different counties. Why does 1 county in the state of New York need so many districts???
Well, it has to do with 2 little things called racism and elitism. White people don't want their children going to school with the blacks that live in the next town over. Also, rich white folk don't want their kids associating with poor "white trash." The status quo is all protected under the guise of "local control" for our public schools.
You'd be surprised at how much people will pay for their homes, and in taxes, to make sure their kids don't go to school with "undesirables." The whole pricing structure of LI real estate is based on school district. If the local school district variable is eliminated, the people that paid a fortune to live in their particular school districts are gonna be quite mad (as their property values TUMBLE)...and let's face it, those are the people that the politicians legislate for anyhow.
Well, it has to do with 2 little things called racism and elitism. White people don't want their children going to school with the blacks that live in the next town over. Also, rich white folk don't want their kids associating with poor "white trash." The status quo is all protected under the guise of "local control" for our public schools.
You'd be surprised at how much people will pay for their homes, and in taxes, to make sure their kids don't go to school with "undesirables." The whole pricing structure of LI real estate is based on school district. If the local school district variable is eliminated, the people that paid a fortune to live in their particular school districts are gonna be quite mad (as their property values TUMBLE)...and let's face it, those are the people that the politicians legislate for anyhow.
Not quite, chief. It's not the 60's any more.
My kids are very athletically active and most of the school districts are they compete against are racially integrated. I'm not suggesting we live in an era of racial harmony, but LI is nowhere as racially polarized as it was when I went to school, some twenty something years ago.
As for the po' 'ol white trash, last I checked, entry level property taxes in my town are around 8k-9k. If you can afford that, you're probably not white trash. Maybe a bit red-necky, but not trash. Sure there are exceptions but...
NYC has one chancellor (who is double-dipping and earning over $400K) plus a leadership team of 15 who are each pulling down in the $200K range. If LI districts were to share superintendents, you're reducing expenses a little, but still not eliminating the large scale problem -- pensions, benefits, teacher salaries, unfunded state mandates, and the fact that we send dollars to Albany and get back pocket change.
Square mileage and population density mean a lot. Think about it....how many more students in close proximity to schools in unified NYC complete with ample public transport to move students as opposed to elsewhere.
Rhode Island has 5 counties which means there are multiple school districts per county in a state which is 1/2 the size of Suffolk County -- the county you propose become one unified county district. There is disconnect when a district head is 60 or 70 miles from a school.
I live in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk, which is about 1/2 the size of Rhode Island which has 36 dustricts; Brookhaven has 18 school districts -- many of them are already large.
Interesting trivia tidbit: Most recent data I can find is that 3 of the top 10 employers in Brookhaven are 3 of the largest districts: Sachem, Three Village, and William Floyd, respectively.
Since you brought it up, here are the top ten employers in Brookhaven:
It's almost counter intuitive to do this education thing right long term... Schools can be run at the county level and still honor neighborhood schools with clusters. It's done well in other states. The only major downside to this approach is redistricting because as density fills in and schools fill up, they have to redraw boundaries. They do this because the tax revenue is collected and dispersed at the county level. New schools are built as needed and the county can leverage the available seats in all the buidlings efficiently over time. Yes, taxes go up in this scenario when they have to build new schools... But, first of all, they don't go up at anywhere near a LI pace and secondly you are in brand new state of the art building.
Making individual towns, hamlets, or villages a tax authority who collects and disperses educational funds - run their own show kind of makes sense early on... The "money" is kept in "your town" for "your schools" and you never are rezoned to a different school. But at significant "soft" costs as time goes on - 30, 40 year old buildings... inadequate facilities... supporting your retired employees... you all know the deal.
Since LI is "built out" and has been for a long time, you lose the single major downside of county based schools (redistricting) because you are not going to get a sudden major influx of students when a new 500 home development breaks ground next year. You know where the students are, you have decades of accurate forecast modeling, you could form neighborhood clusters from the existing buildings - even think about <gasp> building a new school somewhere.
Long term, unless something is done, I don't see how they continue supporting the number of schools that exist on LI today. They will cut as much as they can from the programs and schools will be closing next as they will be unable to pay to maintain them or they won't have the enrollment to justify keeping them open. The pockets of "good schools" on LI will continue to shrink... all while the taxes continue to go up anyway.
NYC has one chancellor (who is double-dipping and earning over $400K) plus a leadership team of 15 who are each pulling down in the $200K range. If LI districts were to share superintendents, you're reducing expenses a little, but still not eliminating the large scale problem -- pensions, benefits, teacher salaries, unfunded state mandates, and the fact that we send dollars to Albany and get back pocket change.
One chancellor and a team of 15 is still cheaper then the director of finance for dinky little Locust Valley making over half a mil a year. That's why LI has to rob from Peter to pay Paul. Go look for yourselves:
Forget about the stupid pensions. If you didn't have that many superintendents and heads of this and heads of that, you would have much less pensions to give out at such a high cost.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
I hope this doesn't sound snarky or that I'm downing Long Island, but is the Island screwed? It seems that it's backed into a corner where any solution to a problem that works elsewhere won't work on the Island because of geography, NIMBY or cost, and there really aren't many creative homegrown solutions being proposed.
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