Thursday, October 1, 2026
If you want to know what’s best for our children here in New York, look at the state of Mississippi.
Deep-South states such as Mississippi were once ridiculed for their educational systems. They had underpaid teachers, shoddy supplies and dismal test scores. Northeastern states, meanwhile, paid a fortune for their schools and, for a time, had the highest test outcomes.
But that was long ago. Over the past few decades, state aid to local education in New York has tripled, and the price per pupil in our state is now the highest in the nation, over $36,000 per year. That’s twice the national average — and about three times what Mississippi spends.
Yet New York test scores continue to drop, and now rank in the middle of the pack among the 50 states.
Meanwhile, the reforms implemented by Mississippi starting in 2014 have revolutionized the learning process. The state didn’t need to increase taxes. It simply employed common-sense solutions: make sure kids show up at school, and enforce standards that they have to live up to.
Third-graders had to pass a comprehensive exam before they were promoted to fourth grade. Social promotions ended. That didn’t mean you were automatically left back, because help was provided for those who were struggling. Summer school came into vogue again.
Miraculously, Mississippi jumped from the bottom of the pack to No. 1 in reading comprehension for fourth-graders and No. 1 in math for fourth- and eighth-graders. It also went back to the proven practice of using phonics to help kids read. The policy wonks of recent decades ditched phonics for new, glitzy programs that didn’t work, but made them rich. We can be thankful that our state is finally reversing this failure.
But instead of New York following Mississippi’s lead on higher standards and more competition, teachers’ unions in our state are trying to keep us in the abyss.
While many New York public schools continue to show dismal results, with the exception of some of the better schools on Long Island and in Westchester, charter schools have shown great success. That’s why there are lines around the block of minority parents trying to get their children into these better schools that spend less, but impose discipline and higher standards. They are succeeding by producing better outcomes.
But when charter schools were finally allowed, in the administration of Gov. George Pataki, as part of a deal to get lawmakers a pay raise, there were caps placed on their number. And despite their marvelous success, elected officials beholden to the unions have kept those caps in place. Just recently, two more charters were approved for Long Island. That’s a godsend for many parents.
But instead of embracing these successful schools, teachers’ unions have tried to shut them down. (Critics say the students are cherry-picked. Not true. They are admitted by way of a lottery, and studies show that public schools actually improve because of the competition.) When they couldn’t win through the legislative process, they’re now trying to shut them down through the courts.
In trying to pass inflated school budgets in the past, the unions would constantly say it was for the kids. It rarely was. It was usually about higher wages and benefits. And now we see that their attempts to block the charter schools are simply attempts to prevent their membership from shrinking, thereby strengthening their power.
If the unions really were concerned about the welfare of the kids, they would drop their efforts in the courts and allow parents, especially those of minority children, to have a choice, like those in Mississippi do.
Like Mississippi, Florida went from the bottom to the top of the rankings for student achievement after it allowed school choice and privately funded scholarships to flow with the students to the schools they preferred.
These states have reduced absenteeism with good old-fashioned discipline, but in woke New York City, officials dramatically reduced enforcing discipline, ridiculously claiming that it was discriminatory against minority students.
We can once again be the best if the unions would just back off their opposition.
Steve Levy is president of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He has served as Suffolk County executive, as an assemblyman and as host of the podcast “On the Right Side.”
