Days of reckoning for schools

There's a lot to like about the restrained new state budget adopted in Albany this week, but that doesn't mean it will be painless -- as school districts all over Long Island have just discovered.

The new budget cuts state aid to districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties by a total of more than $200 million, which will hurt. But it's important to keep those cuts in perspective, and to start thinking more broadly about how to rein in the growth of school spending and property taxes without sacrificing fairness.

First, let's bear in mind that if you add together all the local school budgets on Long Island, the cuts coming from Albany make up less than 2 percent. That's a relatively modest hit in a region where school costs have been rising faster than inflation for years.

In 2008 (the latest year a figure was available), average public school spending on Long Island was a remarkable $25,029 per pupil, a Newsday analysis found, rivaling the tuition at many elite private schools. It's hard to believe that school officials can't find a way to save 2 percent without eliminating sports, science, math, English and heat in winter.

School districts on Long Island must face the fact that an era of austerity is upon us. The trees in Albany don't grow money any more effectively than do those of Long Island, and taxpayers have signaled in the strongest terms that they don't want to pay any more. Districts that believe the cuts are unsustainable can ask voters to approve higher property levies to cover the shortfall, and in some communities these campaigns may even succeed.

Unfortunately, the cuts will prove more painful to poorer districts. Although their aid was cut less by percentage, state aid makes up more of their overall spending, which makes the reductions harder for lower-income districts to bear. And it will be more difficult for them to make up any difference through higher property taxes.

The relationship between school spending and school performance is weak; for 2008-09, affluent Jericho spent $29,724 per pupil, while low-income Wyandanch spent $26,016. Yet despite the relatively modest spending difference, the former far outperformed the latter.

But every child is entitled to a decent education; if anything, schooling is even more important for disadvantaged kids, for whom it offers a ladder out of poverty. And poor children are probably costlier to educate than affluent ones. Since belt-tightening at every level of government is likely to continue, state lawmakers as well as local administrators and boards will have to make sure that, in reining in spending, they don't shortchange low-income kids.

At the same time, school officials in districts of every income level can no longer count on ever-rising revenue -- from Albany or local property taxes -- to insulate them from the hard choices that are a part of running any organization. All parties -- parents, teachers, administrators and students -- will have to be more flexible. The new austerity makes it all the more important that school officials be given the ability to lay off their worst teachers rather than only their newest.

School-aid cuts aren't the end of the world. And if they bring needed reforms, the pain will be well worth it.