The NYC Education Issue

Note the following email exchange regarding Columbia University’s Professor Raymond Horton's letter to the New York Times regarding NYC education:

To the Editor:
Re "City Schools Need $5.6 Billion More, Court Panel Says" (front page, Dec. 1):
Now that a court-appointed panel has decided that annual public school spending in New York City needs to increase by $5.6 billion, in increments of $1.4 billion in each of the next four years, the city and the state are fighting over who should pick up what share of the tab.
These are big numbers, but it's worth remembering that the combined operating budgets of the city and the state are approximately $150 billion this year.
The mayor and the governor should be able to figure out how to trim nonessential spending by $1.4 billion in each of the next four years without raising additional revenues, cutting essential services or sticking the next generation with the bill by borrowing.
The more difficult issue is deciding how to spend the money in ways that better educate our public schoolchildren.
Raymond D. HortonNew York, Dec. 1, 2004The writer is a professor of business at Columbia Business School.

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I wrote to the Professor:

>Dear Professor:
>
>Your letter was right on target. I would have also focused on the
>point that the $5.6 billion represents only about $5,600 a year per
>student (if I can still divide properly). That figure should probably
>be increased by a couple of thousand dollars to create a school system
>that the city can really be proud of. What does it cost Columbia a
>year per student to provide a first class education?
>
>Bruce Neuman
>East Hampton, New York
>(former New Yorker, city that is)

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Answer from Professor Horton:


A lot more than it costs us to ill educate our public schoolchildren. Bye.

Ray Horton

_____________________

Reply from me:

Dear Professor,

I'm not sure what your answer means, but as long as you have your health.

Bye. Bye.

Neuman