The continuing travails of the Yonkers City School District are the subject of an article in today’s New York Times (registration required). Money graf:

After decades of budget conflicts, bitter struggles over desegregation and lagging test scores and graduation rates, most people agree that there needs to be radical change in how the district is run.

However, notwithstanding conventional wisdom, Yonkers’ problem clearly isn’t a lack of money.

As of 2002-03, Yonkers schools spent $13,800 per-pupil — high enough to rank 8th out of the nation’s 25 highest spending school districts with enrollments over 10,000 pupils, according to this report. The median Yonkers teacher salary of $66,936 was not only 26 percent above the statewide median for all public schools, it was also 5 percent above the median for “low needs” (i.e., affluent) districts across New York.

Sure, some of Yonker’s wealthiest neighboring districts pour even more money — in some cases, much more — into their gold-plated schools. Nonetheless, the city ranked a respectable 22nd out of 40 Westchester County districts in per-pupil expenditures as of 2002-03, according to State Education Department data (which, being more recent and more inclusive than the federal data cited above, put Yonkers’ school spending at $15,777 per pupil).

Yonkers actually spent considerably more on its schools than some suburbs in the larger downstate region.

For example, many Yonkers parents no doubt dream of leaving the city and moving north, to a place like the Mahopac School District. Set amid the rolling hills, lakes and housing subdivisions of Putnam County, Mahopac is many ways a typical suburban New York district. But in 2002-03, according to state data, Mahopac’s spending per-pupil was about $2,800 lower than Yonkers’. And the median teachers’ salary in Yonkers was more than 10 percent higherthan in Mahopac.

Back to the Times story:

[Yonkers] City officials have repeatedly said that the schools are underfinanced, and that the state owes them money. State lawmakers counter that the city does not allocate enough of its budget for education.

Sound familiar? These are precisely the same arguments that have surrounded New York City school finances for the past two decades.

Speaking of Gotham, the plaintiffs in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit continue to press their claim that more money is the only thing preventing inner-city kids in New York from getting an adequate education required by the state Constitution.

But if money alone is the answer, there is no explaining Yonkers.