{"id":346134,"date":"2026-09-14T09:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346134\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:30:09","slug":"n-y-fails-education-despite-spending-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346134\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y. fails education despite spending big"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York\u2019s schools are spending more than ever, but student performance keeps falling. The latest disappointing results<\/a> showing declining reading skills are not an isolated setback, but part of a longer pattern.<\/p>\n

For the past decade, New York\u2019s fourth- and eighth-grade students\u2019 performance in math and reading has been declining. Between 2013 and 2024, New York\u2019s fourth-grade mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) fell from 240 to 234, while the reading scores declined from 224 to 215.<\/p>\n

To be fair, student performance declined nationwide, and COVID made the problem worse. But two things stand out<\/a>. First, New York\u2019s decline began before COVID. Second, New York\u2019s drop among fourth graders was larger than the national average.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, this disturbing data about New York\u2019s decline comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, an outside source, not from New York\u2019s own education establishment.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the New York State Education Department has been touting progress, not decline. \u201cStudents Make Progress Statewide<\/a>,\u201d declared its 2014 headline. \u201cStudents Demonstrate Proficiency Increases<\/a>,\u201d announced the 2017 press release. NYSED reported that 2018 results<\/a> were better than 2017, and that 2019 outperformed<\/a> 2018. Similarly, it showed 2025 results were better than those in 2024<\/a>. Only the latest data release acknowledged that the picture may not be so rosy.<\/p>\n

Whatever caused that decline, it was not a lack of money.<\/p>\n

Between 2013 and 2024, New York increased per-pupil spending from $19,500<\/a> to $32,000<\/a>. The U.S. average went from $10,700 to $15,600.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, the average teacher salary in New York rose from $75,000 to $92,000, and the average educator pay is approaching $100,000<\/a>. New York\u2019s teachers enjoy the highest salaries in the country<\/a>, earning a third more than their colleagues nationwide.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, while teacher salaries went up, class sizes went down. Back in 2013, New York had 13 students per teacher; now it has 11.5 students, compared with 15.4<\/a> in the U.S.<\/p>\n

If we compare New York directly with other states, the contrast is even starker.<\/p>\n

Florida spends $14,000 per student, less than half of New York\u2019s level, yet outshines New York in fourth-grade mathematics and reading. Massachusetts tops the charts on educational achievement and spends considerably less.<\/p>\n

Mississippi spends $12,000 yet outperforms New York in fourth-grade mathematics and reading. At the same time, teachers in Mississippi deal with larger class sizes and earn only half of what New York\u2019s teachers make.<\/p>\n

Also, New York is one of the richest states in the country, while Mississippi is the poorest. The average wage is $82,000 in New York and $50,000<\/a> in Mississippi combined with high poverty rates<\/a>. If any state could be excused for difficult socioeconomic circumstances, it\u2019s Mississippi, not New York.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s taxpayers are right to ask why $90 billion spent on education \u2014 enough to run a midsize country \u2014 has not delivered excellence. Sadly, I suspect the education establishment will find a way to blame taxpayers and parents.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Empire Center\u2019s latest opinion poll shows more than 90% of New Yorkers are unhappy<\/a> with how education is run. They want better results, less spending, and more choice \u2014 something that New York\u2019s educational establishment has resisted for decades.<\/p>\n

Here is an out-of-the-box idea: for $37,000 \u2014 what educating a single kid in New York\u2019s public schools will cost in 2026-27<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 we could send each young New Yorker to a boarding school in Europe.<\/p>\n

Sure, this sounds insane, but the real insanity is how much New York mismanages its education system and how little attention the problem receives in Albany.<\/p>\n

Silenas is the president of the Empire Center for Public Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s schools are spending more than ever, but student performance keeps falling. The latest disappointing results showing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56,299],"class_list":["post-346134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}