Who said New York City’s schools are broken? Truth is, they’re working just fine — at least for the people they’re really designed to serve: their employees.
A recent report by the Citizens Budget Commission makes that all too clear. Indeed, when it comes to fringe benefits, it suggests New York City’s teachers are treated better than almost everyone. Better not only than the average Joe in the private sector, but better than other teachers across the country.
Kids are a distant second.
According to the CBC, just to cover the cost of fringe benefits for teachers and other school employees in 2012, New York City spent $5,102, on average, for each and every one of our 1.1 million public-school students. To put that in perspective, this is is three times the US average of $1,573 others pay for such benefits.
Why does this city pay so much more for this than elsewhere? It’s partly because we spend more on schools generally: $20,226 per pupil, or almost twice the $10,608 national average. Even more telling, as CBC analyst Elizabeth Lynam notes, is that New York City school employees don’t pay anything — not one thin cent — for their health-insurance premiums.
That’s not true in most other places. Even in the rest of New York, most school districts require employees to chip in at least something for premiums. “New York City is an extreme outlier,” says Lynam.
Gotham’s teachers also enjoy generous pensions. Their salaries alone can top $100,000. And as The Post’s Susan Edelman reports elsewhere in this paper today, even a lousy teacher is all but impossible to fire in this system.
So, yes, for teachers, we have a public school system that works.
For kids, not so much.
Remember, barely two out of three of our city’s public-school students graduate high school in four years. Of those who do, just 31% are ready for a job or college.
Are we the only ones who see badly misplaced priorities here?