If the point of the education system is to hire a lot of people, regardless of the outcome, then maybe the comparison to other states isn’t helpful.

However, if the goal is to spend the least amount of money to provide the highest quality education for the students, then it is very useful.

Over-staffing occurs wherever labor unions are involved. Rework the education delivery model, and the amount of money needed to provide education will be drastically reduced.

Kind of a useless comparison, though, since the cost of living in NYC is so high.

Fair enough. How ’bout this (State Data):

New York State Population: 19.25M (2005 estimate)
5-18 year olds: 23.8% - 6.5% = 17.3%
17.3% of 19.25M = 3.33M students of school age population

From: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36000.html

New York State spends ~$41.2 billion per year for K-12 education.

From: http://www.bcnys.org/whatsnew/2005/0317schoolspend.htm

New York has 475,942 students in private schools

From: http://www.capenet.org/facts.html

So … 3.33M - 475K = 2.855M public school students age 5-18

41.2B/2.85M = $14,400/student

Is $14.4K/student a reasonable amount to spend for K-12
education in New York (State … I’m assuming/hoping that
New York City isn’t below the state average)?

With a student/teacher ratio of 13.3, this works out to
about $191K/classroom.

Is an additional 10% enough? Or 20%? Or 100%?

Comparisions between states are often invalid because of
cost-of-living issues, but we can always look at the raw
numbers. I don’t live in New York. Is almost $15K/student
enough to pay for a reasonable education there?

-Mark Roulo

New York City already spends more per students than three-quarters of states.

Kind of a useless comparison, though, since the cost of living in NYC is so high.