It is indeed reassuring to have one’s opinions seconded, which is the case with a recent editorial entitled “Easy to be hard with schools,” as I have long known that the school system, as it is administered on Long Island, is the root cause of every major social and economic dysfunction we endure.
Thanks to the way we have enshrined and fetishized a K-12 education, we have let them run riot and drain the Island of a great deal of its potential and its population’s wealth. It’s not because they’re “bad” people. This is the nature of power, and how it can be exploited at the expense of others while claiming this burden is an unmitigated good.
First, however, we must look to the enablers of this system. Especially the ones who call themselves “progressives,” the ones who have systematically looted the poor, while simultaneously branding their children like cattle, thanks to the lack of prestige of certain school districts. And rest assured they like it that way.
These same “progressives” don’t seem to mind that the poor get half the resources while being taxed at twice the amount based on their income. And that is because, as I have pointed out in previous pieces, they’re not even Democrats, they’re actually Conservatives, who believe in their souls that there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. They use the mantle of progressivism as a fig leaf for their own guilt much as Evangelicals use abortion for a similarly counterfeit moral construct.
So too, do the unions. By divvying up districts by race and class, it allows the teaching establishment to boast of the accomplishments of showplace districts. But no matter how the lines are drawn, academic performance knows but one metric: it is inextricably tied to the income of the parents. And that’s ONE math lesson our citizens should learn.
And so, the “Good Schools” myth is preserved and amplified. One district would suffice, and the scholastic outcomes would be no different.
The NYSUT is responsible for more family separations than the Trump Administration ever will be, but tribalism cuts deeply across the political spectrum. Thanks to the needlessly exorbitant cost structure, the old are evicted, and the young sent packing to other parts of the country where opportunities are fewer.
That’s a piece of social dysfunction. Now for the economic:
Industries have fled, and storefronts lay empty, while residents fight tooth and nail to prevent affordable housing from being created, creating an unresolvable tension. People have posited that the mere addition of just 20 students to their district could raise their property taxes. And who could blame them for believing it? Given the institutionalized waste, they may be right.
The system pads payrolls and voter rolls as well as imposing onerous costs, helping to perpetuate its stranglehold on the Island and its residents. Aside from the needless and outlandish bloat of the headcount, health insurance, and pension benefits are exceedingly lavish and almost unknown in the private sector for almost any other industry or discipline.
There are gym teachers whose total compensation approaches that of a Harvard professor. School Superintendents leave with hefty pensions, meaning we’re on the hook for decades to come.
The NYSUT claims this outsized remuneration is necessary to attract qualified talent. No word on what our counties must-do for the same reason, now that they’ve driven tens of thousands away. Think of the human potential we’ve been robbed of.
There are a lot of dying suburbs in this country, slowly evolving into slums. We can thank our lucky stars for our proximity to New York City for any success we’ve had in not winding up on a trash heap. But the danger is there unless we start taking action. And unfortunately, thanks to the slavish fealty of the Governor, and in particular, the Comptroller, who owes his job to these people, you won’t get any. They will play the union card as a sop to their “pro-labor” progressive cred, while simultaneously bleeding the working classes of Long Island. They are the handmaidens of segregation and regressive taxation, not “progressives.”
Remember, folks. It’s all for the kids.
Donald Davret
Roslyn
