Let's Forego State Aid and State Mandates

Former President and Member of the Scarsdale School Board Jeff Blatt has contributed the following comments on state aid and state mandates, which first appeared in print. If you are interested in education, I have a question for you. What do the Race to the Top, the Tax Cap, and all the downstream effects of both have in common? Answer: none of it makes any sense for Scarsdale.

When a government fails to serve its citizens properly, revolt is always a possibility and I say, let’s do it. Or at a minimum, let’s seriously examine the possibility. Let’s secede from the system. Let’s ignore the state and federal government.

Why should we evaluate our teachers based on ridiculous criteria that make no sense for our district? Why should we annually face an arbitrary tax cap number when our budgets regularly pass with overwhelming citizen approval? Why should we submit to an ever increasing schedule of standardized testing that dulls the mind and curriculum?

We do these things now because we are told we must. And we do these things because if we don’t, $6 million of annual state aid (much of this a pass through from the federal government) would likely be withheld. These dollars are the weapon the state wields to enforce its will and its ability to legislate with one size fits all policies.

There are about 6,000 tax paying households in Scarsdale. I have heard whispers of back of the envelope estimates that as much as $5 million of costs could be cut if we could ignore silly state mandates. In that circumstance, we’d be talking a tax bill of an incremental $167 per average household if we lost state aid. I think many of my neighbors would see the wisdom of paying this marginal cost for freedom and local control. For government by the people and for the people.

A partial list of some advantages of secession:

• An end to the ill-conceived notion of evaluating teachers based on standardized test scores. Our district has steadfastly refused to teach to standardized tests. But in a world where performance evaluation and pay is at least partially based on test results, it isn’t a given that our teachers will continue to ignore the tests. Would you?
• Additional weeks of productive teaching when you subtract ten days of Regents testing, 2-3 hours of testing in English and math in every grade 3-8, plus science and social studies tests in a couple of elementary grades and middle school. In addition, you gain back class time lost to test correction and teacher training to correct the tests.
• The development of a budget based on what is best for Scarsdale, as opposed to endless hours spent trying to react to an arbitrary tax cap.
• Terrific, national press as a high performing district taking a stand on behalf of educational excellence.

There are many unknowns, particularly legal. The district is obligated by law to follow the commissioner’s regulations. As mentioned, to date the instrument of law enforcement has been state aid. So what would ensue? Would the license of the superintendent be revoked? Would the state move to dismiss and replace the elected Board of Education? I’d love to see some of the great legal minds in our town think this through.

The primary responsibilities of the Board of Education are to pass an annual budget that funds program, and to see to it that the district is run as well as possible by the best professional team we can employ. Importantly, it also falls to the Board and the Superintendant to think and dream and invent. In my eleven years in Scarsdale, I have consistently witnessed a district that does all of these things. Let’s continue our long tradition of innovative thought and leadership, even as many (both near and far) make it difficult to do so.

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