It is indeed reassuring to have one’s opinions seconded, which is the case with a recent editorial entitled “Easy to be hard with schools,” as I have long known that the school system, as it is administered on Long Island, is the root cause of every major social and economic dysfunction we endure.
Thanks to the way we have enshrined and fetishized a K-12 education, we have let them run riot and drain the Island of a great deal of its potential and its population’s wealth. It’s not because they’re “bad” people. This is the nature of power, and how it can be exploited at the expense of others while claiming this burden is an unmitigated good.
First, however, we must look to the enablers of this system. Especially the ones who call themselves “progressives,” the ones who have systematically looted the poor, while simultaneously branding their children like cattle, thanks to the lack of prestige of certain school districts. And rest assured they like it that way.
These same “progressives” don’t seem to mind that the poor get half the resources while being taxed at twice the amount based on their income. And that is because, as I have pointed out in previous pieces, they’re not even Democrats, they’re actually Conservatives, who believe in their souls that there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. They use the mantle of progressivism as a fig leaf for their own guilt much as Evangelicals use abortion for a similarly counterfeit moral construct.
So too, do the unions. By divvying up districts by race and class, it allows the teaching establishment to boast of the accomplishments of showplace districts. But no matter how the lines are drawn, academic performance knows but one metric: it is inextricably tied to the income of the parents. And that’s ONE math lesson our citizens should learn.
And so, the “Good Schools” myth is preserved and amplified. One district would suffice, and the scholastic outcomes would be no different.
The NYSUT is responsible for more family separations than the Trump Administration ever will be, but tribalism cuts deeply across the political spectrum. Thanks to the needlessly exorbitant cost structure, the old are evicted, and the young sent packing to other parts of the country where opportunities are fewer.
That’s a piece of social dysfunction. Now for the economic:
Industries have fled, and storefronts lay empty, while residents fight tooth and nail to prevent affordable housing from being created, creating an unresolvable tension. People have posited that the mere addition of just 20 students to their district could raise their property taxes. And who could blame them for believing it? Given the institutionalized waste, they may be right.
The system pads payrolls and voter rolls as well as imposing onerous costs, helping to perpetuate its stranglehold on the Island and its residents. Aside from the needless and outlandish bloat of the headcount, health insurance, and pension benefits are exceedingly lavish and almost unknown in the private sector for almost any other industry or discipline.
There are gym teachers whose total compensation approaches that of a Harvard professor. School Superintendents leave with hefty pensions, meaning we’re on the hook for decades to come.
The NYSUT claims this outsized remuneration is necessary to attract qualified talent. No word on what our counties must-do for the same reason, now that they’ve driven tens of thousands away. Think of the human potential we’ve been robbed of.
There are a lot of dying suburbs in this country, slowly evolving into slums. We can thank our lucky stars for our proximity to New York City for any success we’ve had in not winding up on a trash heap. But the danger is there unless we start taking action. And unfortunately, thanks to the slavish fealty of the Governor, and in particular, the Comptroller, who owes his job to these people, you won’t get any. They will play the union card as a sop to their “pro-labor” progressive cred, while simultaneously bleeding the working classes of Long Island. They are the handmaidens of segregation and regressive taxation, not “progressives.”
Remember, folks. It’s all for the kids.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
Don, where is your argument in favor of consolidating school districts or, in the alternative, successful districts absorbing their neighboring struggling district, with redrawing the school taxing district lines to incorporate those struggling districts’ student body for proportionate allocation of consolidated expense? One FULL LAYER of the top-heavy management can be made redundant, thereby saving rather significant sums of money from the over-inflated expense that you refer to.
Where do you argue that school taxes not be a negotiating factor in IDA considerations for housing and affordable housing development? Housing development should not be receiving any form of abatement from school tax obligations, not even by way of PILOTS or gradual phase-in upticks. If a development has the potential of adding to the student population, that development should pay full freight from the outset.
Let’s use Macy’s/Brookfield conceptual development as the example – the housing, including the proposed live-in hotels, should be paying its 100% proportionate share into the Manhasset school district from the minute of concept through certificates of occupancy and ultimate sales and or rentals of units. The Manhasset district would then use those monies to either add-on to their existing buildings or find property to build another school building(s) in anticipation of that potentially significant growth in student enrollment. The alternative would be for Macy’s/Brookfield to build their own K-12 on the development site for the students associated with the rental and sales from their development.
The existing system of IDA school tax giveaways to housing, including affordable housing developers, while burdening the existing school tax district base is unsustainable. The school buildings are already at capacity with class sizes being similarly impacted.
In response:
One, I DID argue for consolidation, and even the complete erasure of district boundaries. I specifically said “One district would suffice, and the scholastic outcomes would be no different.”
Besides the fiscal inequity, which should not be tolerated in a PUBLIC SCHOOL system where ALL children should have the same resources regardless of income or social status, they have perpetuated a class hierarchy that you would think the “progressives” would detest. Instead, they do all they can to maintain it. The hypocrisy of these pompous moral scolds is a sight to behold. They’re all for “equality,” until the moment comes they have to sacrifice to insure it. They’re all voting for Bernie, but they want carve outs out of universal health care reserved only for themselves.
You write: “Housing development should not be receiving any form of abatement from school tax obligations, not even by way of PILOTS or gradual phase-in upticks.”
Aside from the fact this isn’t a critical factor, this underscores my point. Taxes are SO out of the norm, the government now has to resort to incentives they otherwise would not have to make. The school system creates a massive distortion, and government’s only answer (of course) is NOT to rid itself of the distortion, but to create yet ANOTHER one to offset it.
This is how municipalities get into real trouble, and you can see this in other places where pension promises cannot possibly be fulfilled, so instead of modifying the pension structure to a sustainable level, the municipality proceeds to adopt an unsustainable debt structure to meet pension obligations, insuring nothing but future failure and decline.
As far as future development, the fear of overburdened schools is a bit of a red herring. The developers aren’t stupid: in any place they’ve heard this objection, they’ve responded by making their projects top heavy with studio and one bedroom units. Naturally, people STILL whine.
Teachers are getting 75 to 80% of their health insurance premiums covered. There is no logical reason for this special treatment, especially when health insurance costs have exceeded wage growth by double digit increases on an almost annual basis for YEARS. Without so much as negotiating a contract, this, in effect, puts enormous wage gains on auto pilot, while wages are stagnant for the rest of the workforce, and they bear an ever larger share of the cost of deductibles while their premiums simultaneously rise.
Again, I’m not trying to be MEAN to anyone, but this is grossly inequitable, and murderous for the average resident. The remuneration scheme is completely out of control, and it’s killing our County.
Look at your school budget breakdown. The schools have been turned into a pension and benefit scheme for the employees, where actual teaching has been practically reduced to a side hustle.
The IDA, which is yet another incompetent and corrupted bureau of Nassau government, isn’t the issue. We wouldn’t NEED one if we ran our affairs with any discipline. But that’s another story….
PLEASE don’t shift the blame here. It’s obvious where it lies.