Reader’s Forum
Taking a Smarter Approach on School Spending

– By Gerry Seitz –

I think the members of the School Board all mean well and have the best interests of the students at heart.

I recommend they do three things; first, read the “Gathering Storm” report (www.national-academics.org) before they go forward with the Foreign Langue in Elementary School program proposal presented by Dr. Steven Cohen, the assistant superintendent of schools, and the excellent article, “Learning to Compete,” in the Princeton Alumni Weekly of 3/7/07.

Bottom line, the quality of K-12 public education in America is substandard.

The real issue is the failure of America’s public schools to devote sufficient resources to math and the physical sciences.

Currently, only three U.S. companies are in the top 10 receiving patents.

In basic math and science, U.S. fourth graders rank near the 80th percentile in science testing. By 12th grade, they’re in the fifth percentile.

That is to say, the longer they’re in school, the dumber they get, comparatively.

Dr. Cohen’s response is: “Let them learn Spanish”.

America’s trade with Spanish-speaking countries is miniscule compared to our trade with Asia and Europe. Currently, India is the largest English- speaking country in the world; soon to be supplanted by China.

English is the lingua franca of the world. We’ve won this battle. Essentially, wherever we go, we will be able to communicate as long as we speak English.

If the decision of the Board is to spend more money and engage more teachers, let’s spend it on what our children will need and what will benefit America: math and science.

Quite frankly, Dr. Cohen’s enthusiasm for what, on its face, is an objectively worthless expenditure of time and money calls into question the merits of the balance of the curriculum.

Accordingly, my second suggestion is that the Board review the curriculum, making use of an outside consultant, with the thought of seeing what can be done to increase the math and science programs.

Finally, I also suggest an independent group of the Board, or such other members of the community as may wish to be involved, spend a few hours with Catherine Hickey and her staff at the educational office of the New York Archdiocese with the thought of seeing how the Archdiocese addresses administrative and teaching staffing needs and consequent personnel requirements.

While I recognize there may be some differences due to different models, I am confident the prospective dollar savings by extending the Archdiocesan model to Rye — at no loss of academic result — are literally in the millions of dollars.

This Board - and its predecessors - has not given the community a proposed budget at or below the rate of inflation within the memory of man.

The prospective average spent per pupil is rapidly nearing $22,000, in excess of the tuition at Rye Country Day and many other private schools in the area.

As a product of parochial education and one generally familiar with the results achieved by current Catholic education with a significantly lesser spend per pupil, I don’t understand this.