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Health & Fitness

Feasting in the Land of Plenty (a Cautionary Tale)

A meaningful and stark comparison between two school districts on the eve of the school board election.

The North Shore Central School District has been blessed with a fabulous fountain of revenue, the Glen Head Power Plant.  The plant had generated $14 million revenue every year to North Shore CSD, and this wellspring of cash has fueled lavish spending in the schools of Glen Head, Sea Cliff, and Glenwood Landing to a stratospheric $32,000 per student per year!  Discussing this over lunch yesterday, we were at a loss to imagine how it would even be possible to spend $32,000 on children attending public schools, even on the fabled Gold Coast of Gatsby’s Long Island.

Comparing Wantagh and the North Shore Central School District is irresistible, and so here I go.

Elementary Schools: 3 in Wantagh, 3 in North Shore

Secondary Schools: 2 in Wantagh, 2 in North Shore

Enrollment: 3,343 Wantagh (larger by 500 students) 2,829 North Shore

Budget: $72 Million for Wantagh $91 Million for North Shore Spending per Pupil: $ 21,458 for Wantagh $ 31,993 for North Shore

Results
Wantagh out-shines North Shore in almost every performance metric. 

State Assessments


Analyzing 2011-12 Assessments for all tests, grades 3 thru 8, discloses:

Performance Index: Wantagh 131; North Shore 118 (100 = State Median)

On or above grade level: Wantagh 81%; North Shore 73.5%

Mastery: Wantagh 29.7%; North Shore 25.8%

Regents Exams


Performance Index: Wantagh 109.3; North Shore 102.8 (100 = State Median)

Regents Tests Above 120 Performance Index: Wantagh 2; North Shore 0
Regents Tests Above 110 Performance Index: Wantagh 5; North Shore 1
Regents Tests Below 100 Performance Index: Wantagh 1; North Shore 3

So there you have North Shore Central School District spending $32,000 per student, fifty percent more than Wantagh spends, and Wantagh outperforming this high-priced 'gold coast' school district almost across the board.

But now, here comes the bad news: LIPA is closing the Glen Head Power Plant and it is estimated this will cost North Shore CSD $8 million per year in revenue which must either be made up by increasing school taxes 24% up front, or by cutting a like amount out of their budget, or some combination of the two. Despite decades of NS residents clamoring for LILCO & LIPA to close the power plant for environmental reasons, the NS school district chose to ignore the inescapable reality of this plant’s eventual closing.  Deep in denial, the first reaction of the NS-CSD was to appeal to the State for financial relief.  Their State Assemblyman has arranged a $500,000 grant in aid to partially offset the hit in next year’s school budget.  While a nice political gesture, $500,000 is barely a drop in the Long Island Sound.  On the other hand, that $500,000 bail-out is state aid money that will not be available to Wantagh or any other SD, for things like technology or tax relief.

For anyone who may have guessed, NS-CSD’s spending $32,000 per student every year actually is a function of headcount (FTE’s), of salaries paid to teachers and administrators, and of their employing a cadre of non-classroom administrators.  If nothing else, this is a teachable moment on the Economics topic of the Law of Diminishing Returns.  For all the money NS-CSD has spent, they have comparatively diminished results from their students, considering what Wantagh has accomplished, and forgetting all about that Wantagh spends 1/3 less than NS-CSD.

But the practical lesson to be had from this dissertation is, why would Wantagh elect an administrator from the North Shore Central School District to our Board of Education?

Information Source Links:
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/mgtserv/propertytax/docs/2012-13PTRC5_10_12_Budget_Data_Post.pdf
http://projects.nytimes.com/new-york-schools-test-scores/counties/nassau/districts/north-shore-central-school-district
http://projects.nytimes.com/new-york-schools-test-scores/counties/nassau/districts/wantagh-union-free-school-district
http://seethroughny.net/payrolls/schools/

The author may be contacted at chriswendt117@gmail.com for additional information.

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