The state faces a $6+ Billion budget shortfall this year that will climb to more than $8 Billion next year.  For those of you who were social work majors in college, the only way to address such a situation is to either cut spending or to raise revenue.   

For the past several months, Governor Paterson has been calling for spending cuts, and he has called the legislature back for a special session to address the budget crisis.  However, I seriously doubt that the legislature will take any kind of substantive action until after the election.  Only a fool (or someone who put the best interest of the state above their own personal ambition) would jeopardize their chances at reelection by cutting programs or benefits that the proud people of the state of New York have come to expect.

But even after the election, I am not optimistic that the legislature will make the sort of cuts that will be necessary.  If we look at the state budget the way we look at a household budget, we can see what needs to be done.  If you have a deficit in your home budget, do you start cutting modest, necessary, stable expenditures like electricity or heat?  Or do you take the hatchet to the grocery bill, which eats up half of your paycheck and has been growing every year by 10%?  Most intelligent people would start shopping at Aldi instead of Whole Foods and would drastically cut down on their arugula consumption. 

By far, the largest percentage of the state’s $121 Billion budget is devoted to education and health care, and both of those areas have been growing each year at double the rate of inflation.  To address the deficit, the state must bring these expenditures under control.

But the whining has already begun.  According to the New York Times Editorial Board, “sharing the pain, as the governor promises, should not mean forcing the poor to make most of the sacrifices.  Cuts in funds for schools and health care should only take away the extras that special interests have added, not crucial services.” 

Let’s focus our attention on education.  The Times is exactly right that we need to cut “extras that special interests have added.”  Some of the most powerful “special interests” in the state are teachers unions.  When the state lobbying commission compiled a list of entities with the highest lobbying expenditures, the United Teachers (NYS) and the United Federation of Teachers were both in the top ten.

It is not a coincidence then, that New York spends more on education than any other state in the Union.  Shockingly, on a per pupil basis, New York spends $18,768 per year.  I could not find the 2008 numbers broken down by state, but I was able to find such a breakdown for 2004-05.  Back then, New York was still number one, but it only spent $14,119.  (Of course, that means that we have increased education spending by 33% in three years, but I can’t dwell on that for too long, or I will have an aneurysm).  The average per pupil spending in the United States at that time was only $8,701.  And by the way, attending senior high at several of the Rochester area’s finest private schools costs less than a public school education: Harley School: $17,000; Allendale-Columbia: $17,800; McQuaid: $9,400.

I would be more comfortable paying so much for education if we actually saw some kind of benefit.  But by most measures, the New York education system is a titanic failure.  In the year 2003, our graduation rate was 58%, 47th out of 50 states.  The national average was 70%, and students in places like Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas graduated at a higher rate. 

The most recent data I could find came from 2005, and even then, New York was only ranked 36th.  The educational systems in Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Arkansas did a better job at getting their students to graduate.  Those states spend more on chewing tobacco for state employees than they spend on education!

I understand that graduation rates are just one part of the equation when evaluating the effectiveness on an educational system.  Another critical part is measuring what students have learned on an objective scale.  A classic measure used by colleges and statisticians the world over is SAT scores.  Not surprisingly, New York sucks.  It ranks 44th in the country.  Again, the mighty Empire State fares worse than educational powerhouses such as Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Louisiana.

(At this point, we should pause.  If you find yourself remarking that we need to spend more on education so that we can improve our rankings, then you should be eaten by weasels.  Or at very least, you should not be permitted to vote.  I guess you could say that I favor the disenfranchisement of cretins.  I am not exactly sure if that would make things worse for Republicans or Democrats, but I’m willing to take the risk.)

To address the fiscal crisis in New York, the most obvious place to make cuts is education.  The state does not need to spend almost $19,000 per year per pupil to rank 44th in SAT scores and 36th in graduation rates.  I could accomplish a similar feat spending half that much money. 

The depressing thing is that many states DO spend half that much, but they still manage to graduate students who perform better on standardized tests.