For years, pundits inside the city and out have demanded that New York City reduce its high level of wasteful spending outside the classroom, with some asserting that if only New York City’s non-instructional spending were at typical levels it would have plenty of money for teaching. There was perhaps no greater falsehood ever spread in the city’s fiscal debates. Instead, it is the rest of New York State that stands out in its sky-high non-instructional spending relative to the national average, while New York City has always been low. In fiscal 2005, non-instructional spending totaled $3,423 per student in New York City, or $2,554 if the cost of living is adjusted for, well below the national average of $3,400. The Downstate Suburbs (also adjusted for living costs), Upstate New York, and New Jersey (adjusted as well) far exceeded national average at $4,221, $4,350, and $4,449 respectively. The U.S. Census Bureau data on expenditures per pupil may be found in the spreadsheet attached to my previous post here http://www.r8ny.com/blog/larry_littlefield/per_student_revenues_and_expenditures_in_fy_2002_and_fy_2005_a_little_good_news_and_lot_of_bad_news_for_n . A more detailed discussion, including a discussion of changes from FY 2002 to FY 2005, follows.
New York City was infamous for the time-servers ensconced in the former Board of Education headquarters at 110 Livingston Street, and the patronage employees hired by its community school districts. Even so, in FY 2002 NYC’s spending per pupil on “general administration,” which includes “expenditure for board of education and executive administration (office of the superintendent)” according to the Census Bureau, was $119 per student after adjustment for the cost of living, well below the U.S. average of $153. After gaining control of the NYC public schools, Mayor Bloomberg’s managers fired a large share of the staff of both the central school board and the community school districts, and NYC’s adjusted general administration expenditures per student fell to just $56 in FY 2005, far below the national average of $166. In inflation-adjusted dollars, spending in this category fell 57.1%. The Downstate Suburbs, at an adjusted $284 per student, and Upstate New York at $311 per student, were approximately double the national average – and five or six times the level of New York City. General administration per spending rose 21.7% in the Downstate Suburbs, and 12.7% in Upstate New York, even after adjustment for the cost of living from FY 2002 to FY 2005.
Despite cutbacks in school nurses during the post 9/11 fiscal crisis, the city increased spending on “pupil support” by 37.6% more than inflation from FY 2002 to FY 2005. This category of expenditure, according to the instructions on the form school districts use to send this information to the Census Bureau, includes “attendance, social work, student accounting, counseling, student appraisal, information, record maintenance, and placement services” along with medical, dental, nursing, psychological and speech services.” Despite the increase, the city’s schools remain a sink or swim environment if spending per pupil on pupil support is a guide. This was an adjusted $100 in NYC in FY 2005, well below the national average of $447 for the entire U.S., the adjusted $582 in the Downstate Suburbs, the $496 in Upstate New York, and the adjusted $978 in New Jersey.
It is possible that this is where spending on Mayor Bloomberg’s other major change, the “parent coordinators,” may be found. Has this been an effective use of resources? My view is that parents are responsible for a substantial share of a child’s education over the years, a role some parents are more willing and able that others to perform. If the job of the parent coordinator is to help, or push, parents to do that job more effectively, then they are probably a good idea. If the job is to help chill out helicopter parents, then perhaps not. My question is do you call the parent coordinator (“I’m politically active, and I want my kid to get the good teacher rather than the stiff, who can teach the less important children”) or does the parent coordinator call you (“you owe it to you child to read to them and check their homework, and I don’t want to hear any whining that you’re at taxpayers and it’s not your job”). The former could be considered a political office intended to build support for the administration’s policies, the latter an attempt to leverage whatever family resources there are for education. The latter could be considered a very good idea.
I was stunned to find that even after adjustment for the cost of living, New York City’s expenditures on student transportation, at $512 per student, were above the national average of $367 though below the adjusted average for the Downstate Suburbs (at $726), Upstate New York (at $801) and the adjusted average for New Jersey (at $579). Stunned because I believe that a vastly higher share of NYC children walk to school than is typical elsewhere in the country. I expected NYC transportation spending, therefore, to be much lower. The fact that spending in the rest of the state is more than double the national average, even with a cost of living adjustment for Downstate, on the other hand, doesn’t surprise me at all.
The city’s high transportation spending may explain one of Mayor Bloomberg’s greatest political debacles. For years, New York City’s school bus companies had their contracts renewed without competitive bidding under what certainly seemed like a sweetheart arrangement. When the Mayor tried to cut costs, the companies sued and managed to delay implementation until January. Perhaps out of frustration, perhaps out of fear that if the changes were postponed until the following September they could be considered a new action subject to a new lawsuit and a new delay, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein went ahead anyway, leading to further humiliation. Fans of privatization take note: the private sector may be more efficient, but one of the things it does efficiently is fleece the government. To get around an entrenched sense of entitlement among school custodians, the Department of Education pursued the replacement of civil servants with private companies. Perhaps in this case it should do the reverse.
The Mayor’s building operations initiatives, however, had yet to yield any savings by FY 2005. Adjusted for the cost of living, the city spent $878 per student on the maintenance and operation of is school physical plant that year, about the same as the national average of $831, and up 16.5% in excess of inflation from FY 2002. This is disappointing given that the city certainly has less plant and equipment per child than the national average; in much of the country school actually have playing fields to maintain. The Downstate Suburbs ($1,091 adjusted), Upstate New York ($1,060), and New Jersey ($1,059 adjusted) are all somewhat higher. Food service spending, on the other hand, fell by 15.3% after adjustment for inflation from FY 2002 to FY 2005. It is also lower in NYC ($260 per student) than the national average ($332) or Upstate New York ($317) though higher than in the Downstate Suburbs ($189 adjusted) or New Jersey ($250 adjusted). A higher share of NYC children receiving school breakfasts, and summer meals, may increase spending here.
I’ve been told by those in the business on more than one occasion that the dream of many teachers is to get out of the classroom and away from the disrespectful, disobedient, uninterested (English teachers note, I knew enough not to say disinterested despite having been educated in the 1970s), foul-mouthed kids (whom no bureaucrat or education expert would last 10 minutes in a class with). One place to land — an “instructional support” position, defined by the Census Bureau as “expenditures for the supervision of instruction service improvements, curriculum development, instructional staff training, academic assessment, and media, library and instruction-related technology services.”
Unless teachers actually working on these out-of-classroom tasks are being mis-classified by New York City on the Census Bureau form as instructional, however, it doesn’t appear that many dreams are coming true here, nor does it seem that NYC teachers are getting much support or assessment. New York City’s cost-adjusted per student spending in this category was just $72, a small fraction of the national average of $410, the adjusted Downstate Suburban average of $438, or the Upstate New York average of $494, although the city did post a 14.7% increase in inflation-adjusted expenditures in the category from FY 2002 to FY 2005 (the math coaches?). I’m agnostic on curriculum issues, but those involved in the curriculum wars, and feeling that they are on the losing end, might at least be comforted that they didn’t pay much for what they got.
Finally, New York City posted a substantial 22.1% increase in “school administration” spending from FY 2002 to FY 2005. According to the survey form, expenditures in this category are for “the office of principal services.” The city’s spending on in-school administration, however, at an adjusted $382 per student in FY 2005, was still below the national average of $478, and well below the average for the adjusted average for the Downstate Suburbs ($606) and New Jersey ($512) and the average for Upstate New York ($541).
No matter how you look at the overall number, New York City’s non-instructional spending is low compared with the national average. Would I want it to be higher? No. To me if money can be saved here through greater efficiency, the city should be better off. And if more “pupil support” and “instructional support” is required, better to have it provided by classroom teachers working additional hours and days, rather than by a set of specialists. Ideally, in fact, the amount of such services and of additional instruction for children who are beyond would be sufficient that any teacher who wanted to could work something closer to a full time professional schedule in exchange for a full time professional wage, while retaining the traditional teacher’s schedule as an option. Having that choice would make the field much more attractive relative to competing careers. And if the choice were generally available, NYC could legitimately advertize the full time pay as the real teacher’s wage.
I would like to see New York City’s children receive a decent education, but I feel no need for everyone to pay for waste and frills. There is apparently plenty of both elsewhere in New York State, the data shows. I accept having those elsewhere in the state receiving a gold-plated education if that is their choice, if they are willing to pay for it, and if New York City’s children at least receive the basics. But why has New York City’s share of state school aid been kept so low for so long, with educational resources transferred out of the city by state funding and education “tax relief” formulae, to pay for such high non-instructional spending? Moreover, does instructional spending, in fact really need to be double the national average in the Downstate Suburbs, and 50% higher even with an adjustment for the cost of living, given the relatively advantaged population of children there? Should those in New York City be taxed to pay for this? Should those ripped off by the low spending on an inferior education NYC in the past, in particular, now be taxed so school districts elsewhere in the state can continue to hire more and more non-instructional workers and pay more to outbid New York City for teachers )and cops)?
In the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, the state argued that because New York City was more efficient, it required less money, and because school districts in the rest of the state are less efficient, they require more aid. In other words, New York City should continue to be under pressure to push its non-instructional spending down so the money can be spent elsewhere. No one talked about the elsewhere. In is only recently, in fact, that I have seen a few cracks in a few places with a few hints of criticism of the high level of spending outside New York City. Just a few. For most of those of all political persuasions, this topic is still off limits.
I’ll take the issue up in more detail in my next post. Since my usual focus is New York City, I generally make comparisons to large regions elsewhere in the state. Attached to the next post, however, will be the FY 2005 data from my prior post for every school district in the New York State.