Saturday, February 1, 2025

NY Teachers Unions Pump School Spending to Highest in the Nation at $36K Per Kid — Yet They Rank Low In Reading and Math: Report; Some NYC Schools Spending Massive Amounts On Per-Pupil Budgets — But Show Dismal Results

NY teachers unions pump school spending to highest in the nation at $36K per kid — yet they rank low in reading and math: report:
This is some bad math.
New York funnels more money into its schools than any state in the nation — with only mediocre results to show for it, a withering report released Friday reveals.
Spending on education has gone up — to a whopping $89 billion on New York school districts this academic year — even as both enrollment and test scores have plummeted, according to the analysis by the Citizens Budget Commission.
The statewide average of spending per student came to an eye-popping $36,293, a 21% increase since the 2020-21 school year, the report by the budget watchdog group found.
That’s even as the scores of New York schoolkids on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the one common test taken by students from across the US — dipped further than the national average.
“Continuing to shovel more and more money every year to school districts without fundamentally questioning this status quo behavior will not solve this problem,” the CBC report said.
“It is well past time for the state to improve student outcomes and ensure that schools’ vast resources meet the needs of students by improving oversight to identify what is not working, fine-tuning interventions to ensure their effectiveness, and holding districts accountable when schools fail to deliver results.”
Of the $89 billion in overall spending, $39 billion comes from the state budget, per the report.
New York spends more than other states on mostly everything — teachers’ salaries, benefits and pensions, school construction, services for immigrants or non-English speakers and even electrifying school buses, CBC officials said.
An edict by the state Legislature to lower class sizes in city public schools — championed by United Federation of Teachers President Mike Mulgrew over the objections of Mayor Eric Adams — is also costing.
Mulgrew and the teachers’ union also campaigned against cuts to school budgets based on enrollment.
Under the controversial “hold-harmless” provision maintained by Albany lawmakers — and backed by school district officials and the union — schools with shrinking student populations get to maintain the same level of funding, or even see increases. --->READ MORE HERE
Some NYC schools spending massive amounts on per-pupil budgets — but show dismal results:
Some New York City public schools spend up to three times as much per student than the citywide average — but show dismal results, The Post has found.
The average per-pupil budget at NYC public schools was $21,112 in fiscal year 2023-24, according to new reports posted by the city Department of Education, but dozens spend much more — up to $60,000-plus — while producing math and reading scores well below the citywide average, records show.
This year, after Chancellor David Banks ordered many schools to adopt a new phonics-based curriculum, the citywide proficiency rate in reading for NYC students in grades 3-8 fell from 51.7% last year to 49.1%, according to preliminary results released this week. Math proficiency inched up 3.5 percentage points from last year to 53%.
The final results to come out this fall may differ because the preliminary data don’t include kids learning to speak English – their scores are still being “verified,” documents show.
But many of the lowest-scoring schools enroll fewer than 100 children with per-pupil spending on par with a pricey private education, records show..
“It’s really scary that students are performing so poorly with all that money being spent,” a DOE administrator who reviewed the data told The Post. “I’m shocked that district superintendents haven’t stepped in to question what’s going on.”
Each school has a budget that primarily covers its own salaries, benefits and supplies – not “central services” like food, maintenance, safety personnel and transportation. Those DOE services tack on an additional $13,098 per student on average, and are expected to bring total spending to $39,304 per pupil in 2025.
Among the eye-popping school budgets:
MS 371
The School of Earth Exploration and Discovery, known as SEED, spent $53,181 for each of its 95 students, according to its “School Budget at a Glance.”
Just 7% of those students scored 3 to 4.5, proficient and above, on the math exams and 23% passed in reading. --->READ MORE HERE
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