Spending on Education in New York Skyrockets, Results Stagnant

May 26, 2011

Breaking news from the Department of Redundancy Department: No matter how much money taxpayers cough up to fund education, in some cities and states it’s just never going to make the slightest bit of difference if the children aren’t learning. New York State leads the nation by a wide margin in spending per student and one would expect for the amount spent they’d be cranking out the brightest kids in the nation.

Think again:

New York state’s school systems deserve an F — in financial accountability.

State taxpayers spend substantially more money on education than any other state in the nation but get far less in return on their investment, according to a shocking new federal study released yesterday.

New York schools on average spent $18,126 per student in the 2008-2009 school year — tops in the nation, the Census Bureau reports.

That’s nearly $2,000 more than the $16,271 spent in neighboring New Jersey and 80 percent higher than the national average of $10,499.

But the Empire State’s four-year high-school graduation rate of 73.5 percent ranked a lowly 39th in the nation, two points below the national average, according to a separate analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Yet despite these abysmal results, there’s still little accountability of teachers, whose salary and benefits account for a whopping two-thirds of the money spent on each pupil, by far superceding other states. Giving credit where due, at least Governor Cuomo is acknowledging there’s a problem here.

“We spend too much money and we get too few results,” Cuomo said at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica yesterday when asked about the Census report.

“It’s not just that we spend too much money. It’s that we spend too much money and the system isn’t performing for the students,” he said.

Still, nothing will change so long as the teacher’s union have a stranglehold on the Democratic Party. Being New York State is under virtual one-party rule, expect the same old same old. Spending will continue to skyrocket, the teachers will demand more and more and the kids will be the ones failing not only in school but in life.

If you needed futher evidence how out of control the spending is, you could actually attend a four-year state college in New York, including room and board and all ancillary expenses, for a shade over $20,000. Now while those costs continue to increase annually, that’s still fairly reasonable compared with the tuition and fees at most private colleges. Within another year or so, it will likely cost more per student in New York’s public elementary and high schools than in their colleges. Now there’s a teachable moment.