School districts outside New York City paid a record-high number of employees $100,000 or more during the 2019-20 school year as schools were physically closed for the final three months, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Read More
Families and businesses are watching their bottom lines and stretching each dollar. But House Democrats are pushing a plan to prevent America’s schools from doing the same thing. Read More
Education Week’s rankings do not measure what counts. New York’s substandard achievement coupled with highest-in-the-nation spending and above-average wealth means that when it comes to school quality, New York fails to pass the mark. Read More
New York’s largest teachers union this summer threatened to go on strike rather than allow schools to reopen for in-person classes—despite months of preparation by officials and a state law that prohibits union work stoppages. Read More
Months of bad decisions and inaction by New York state officials have put school districts in the awkward position of having to give pay raises to most teachers while laying off others. Read More
If New York was a country in 2016—the most recent year for global education spending data—it would have boasted the highest per pupil expenditure in the world, even after subtracting 20 percent of state aid. Read More
Polling this month showed that two-thirds of the nation’s teachers would prefer to stay out of the classroom this fall, and teachers unions across America are poised to keep schools from reopening. The unions say the safety of their members is their top concern, yet, truth is, their bottom lines are just as critical. That’s because the pandemic represents their biggest financial threat since teachers won the right to stop paying them. Read More
New York school districts are seeking voter approval of budgets that would raise their per-pupil spending by an average of more than four times the projected inflation rate. Most districts have proposed property tax hikes as high as the maximum allowed without supermajority overrides under the tax cap law. Read More