OK, we’ll concede that the 33 parents who allegedly paid millions in bribes to help their children get into elite colleges appear to have set a new standard for unfairness in the college admissions process.
It’s hard to compete with allegations of directing bribes to college coaches, having someone taking the SAT or ACT exams for a student or having someone review and correct the students’ answers after the tests were taken.
Or university coaches and administrators getting paid to secure admission for students who may not have even played the sport.
Or students’ faces photoshopped onto athletes’ bodies and bogus achievements added to their college applications.
Or defendants who include television star Lori Loughlin and her husband, the fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli; the actress Felicity Huffman; and William E. McGlashan Jr., a partner at the private equity firm TPG.
It is also hard to compete with how the rich have “traditionally” bought their children access to top colleges as Charles Kushner appears to have done for his son Jared, now President Trump’s son-in-law and chief counselor.
Charles Kushner pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University in 1998, not long before Jared – with reportedly a less than stellar high school record – was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school.
Coincidence? We report, you decide. Done deciding yet?
Still, a good case can be made that many who enjoy reading the details of the latest college admissions scandal or more traditional access buying haven’t at least tipped the playing field greatly in favor of their children beginning in kindergarten.
How so?
By choosing to live in a school district with a strong record of success for its students. Which invariably translates into a school district with high property taxes, more expensive homes and wealthier parents.
The United States – and the United States alone – relies on property taxes to finance our public schools.
The results can be seen in the great disparity in spending per pupil between school districts in our area. Great Neck, for instance, spends more than $34,000 per student while neighboring Sewanhaka spends $24,000 per pupil.
We take nothing away from the hard work and valuable contributions of board of education members and parent associations, but the difference in spending should, and usually does, translate into better education, more services and greater opportunities for students in high tax districts.
And this does not even take into account the money spent by parents on ACT and SAT prep classes and companies that assist students and parents in the application process – including help on writing essays – as well as the assistance of parents.
This is destiny by zip code.
Nassau County residents frequently complained about their high taxes even before a county reassessment that will raises taxes on half of the county’s property owners and the tax law approved by a Republican Congress and president that limits to $10,000 the federal tax exemption for state and local taxes.
But there is an easy solution they have chosen not to take: cutting school spending. Since two-thirds of most property tax bills go to schools wouldn’t that be the logical place to cut costs?
School districts that spend $34,000 per pupil could cut spending to $24,000 per pupil and watch their property tax drop dramatically.
In fact, taxpayers have the power to insist on these spending cuts – and tax cuts – since they vote on school budgets.
Yet they don’t. For understandable reasons.
Parents want the best for the children and they know that higher spending means a better education. No one can argue with that.
And even those who don’t have children in the district know that good schools translate into higher home values.
The state of New York has responded to both the high taxes and the disparities in education between children attending public schools.
The state helps reduce the imbalance in spending between districts with a state aid formula in which less affluent school districts get more help through the state income tax. But its efforts fall well short of establishing parity.
To address high taxes, the state Legislature and Gov. Cuomo imposed a 2 percent tax cap on all local governments that limits how much they can increase the tax levy from year to year – a temporary plan Cuomo would now like to see made permanent.
The tax cap places a significant restriction on local governments’ discretion in spending, which oddly has strong local support. Implicit in this support is the plea: Stop us before we vote again.
The tax cap is particularly restrictive on school districts since an override of their tax cap requires 60 percent of the public’s vote. A village only needs three of its five members.
Sixty percent of the vote is a hard thing to achieve.
The last president to get 60 percent of the popular vote was President Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 when he defeated Republican Alf Landon.
So, in effect, the 2 percent tax freezes the disparity in spending per student in place. In fact, it actually makes it worse.
How so? Just think about the difference between 2 percent of $34,000 and 2 percent of $24,000 — $680 vs. $480.
Rather than permanently approve a 2 percent tax cap on all school districts, why not approve a cap on state aid to school districts that exceed a reasonable level of school spending adjusted for cost of living?
And use the money saved to increase aid to school districts that fall below what is determined to be a reasonable level.
That would be a more effective and fairer way to control spending.
And if high-spending districts wish to use their own taxpayers’ money to exceed the 2 percent tax cap, let them. It’s their money.
Americans have always prided themselves on the idea that this is a country in which people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to succeed. It has defined our image of ourselves.
But recent studies show that we lag behind many countries in the world in social mobility. Education is one important reason why.
And if we don’t do something to this system, then the difference between us and Hollywood actresses allegedly gaming the college admissions process is only one of degree.
