The Citizens Budget Commission has posted some nifty charts breaking out the difference between New York State and the U.S. averages for different categories of public elementary and secondary school spending. One noteworthy data point: between 1999 and 2009, spending per pupil on employee benefits for instructional staff rose 169 percent in New York, compared to 100 percent nationally.
As noted in my recent Newsday op-ed on this topic, “the big bucks in K-12 education [in New York] are tied up in the comparatively high salaries and benefits of teachers” — not in administrative overhead, despite our large number of school districts.
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