School on Long Island Worry About Education Quality Due to Tax Cap Cuts

Janet Joyce Friday, April 5, 2013

One of the most important resources that we have here on Long Island is our children. It is not the economic value of the industry, but the children which live here and their education. Because in these little ones our future is held. This is why many educators on Long Island are worried about what will happen in the year to come because of the lower tax caps. Two plus years of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2-percent property tax cap have left Long Island school districts struggling to make the grade, say New York educators, both union and management. Local leaders are concerned that the Island’s celebrated status as providing the best bang for the buck in public education is in jeopardy.

And if the Island loses its reputation for quality public schools—one of the reasons for our region’s economic viability—then high school graduates may find it harder to get accepted to the colleges and universities of their choice.

“Our students definitely present a transcript that shows far more rigor when applying to colleges and universities,” says Lorraine Deller, executive director of the Nassau Suffolk School Boards Association. “This has been something that has been the mainstay of public education on Long Island.”

She credits “Long Islanders’ willingness to pay higher taxes” with enabling the growth in Advanced Placement courses, the array of electives in science, technology and math, and the uplifting offering of arts and music programs, which has made Nassau and Suffolk public school graduates so competitive.

With the problems of schools already showing a steady decline, and a lapse in teacher evaluations, it is too much on the school districts to worry about where they will find the money to meet their budgets. These worries have a direct effect on the quality of the education that the children will be receiving. If it is in the best interest of the children, then choices have to made to help the children.

janetj@longislandyellowpages.com

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