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2009 Report and Key Findings
Special Analysis
- Long Island's Educational Structure
- Download Data and Charts
- Download the Launch Presentation with Speech Notes (PDF)
Supplemental Reports:
Survey:
Report Sections:
HIGHLIGHTS:
Economy
- Long Island’s economy is not faring well in comparison to the U.S. as a whole.
- Annual growth in GDP/GMP (Gross Domestic Product/Gross Metropolitan Product) was less on Long Island than the U.S.
- Most significantly, average annual pay per employee was on the down swing in 2008 and is now on par with the United States as a whole. Ten years ago, Long Islanders earned more than the U.S. average but in inflation adjusted dollars, Long Island’s average pay per employee was $834 lower in 2008 than it was in 1999.
- Long Island is one of the few places in the nation with local bidder preference laws which are in place to favor local contractors for public work projects and purchases of goods and services. The downside is that they can result in higher costs and reduce competition.
Our Communities
- Revised Census data shows 4% population growth in Nassau and Suffolk over the past eight years compared to previous estimates that showed virtually no growth.
- Long Island continues to become more racially and culturally diverse but still lags the U.S. overall.
- Long Island’s downtowns showed a small increase in vacancy rates over the past year indicating that the problems on Wall Street had not yet impacted Main Street.
- Home sale prices declined and gross monthly rents leveled off.
- High-cost loans account for 24% of all mortgages on Long Island between 2004 and 2007. Blacks and Latinos received the majority of these types of loans.
- Transit ridership grew in 2007 but still lags other rail systems in the larger region.
Health & Education
- The number of students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) in high-poverty schools has doubled in the past seven years.
- Only 45% of Long Island’s children under the age of six are in a formal, regulated child care program. Of those families using licensed child care programs, 76% pay more than the recommended 10% of their household income on that care.
Our Environment
- Land preservation goals are still not being met but the number of acres preserved improved slightly.
- Long Island’s electricity and natural gas consumption keeps growing as well as our carbon emissions.
Governance
- Long Island relies more heavily on property taxes as a percentage of total revenues than the rest of the state and property taxes have increased 20% in the past ten years compared to 6% statewide.
The Long Island Index 2009 highlighted areas of the country that have successfully addressed many of the critical issues in education. One innovative initiative on equity took place here on Long Island. Administrators in Rockville Center school district were troubled by the persistent achievement gap between on the one hand, Black and Latino students, and on the other, Whites and Asian-American students. They were troubled, too, by the over-representation of Blacks and Latinos in low-achieving classes. In the late 1990’s, under the guidance of Superintendent William Johnson, they started de-tracking their classes. Instead of isolating all the “gifted” students in one class, the “slow learners” in another, they mixed the classes by ability and race, and they taught a new, more rigorous curriculum to everyone. Intuition might tell you that the low-track students might go up, but the high-track students would go down. That is not what the research showed. In class after class all groups went up and the achievement gap closed. Carol Corbett Burris, principal of RVC’s South Side High School concludes, “Give all student access to first-class learning opportunities and everyone wins.”
Here are some examples from other parts of the country that we may learn from and perhaps consider implementing in our own region:
- Creation of Vermont’s State Education Fund that removed the inequities in funding between rich and poor school districts.
- Minnesota’s “Fiscal Disparities Act” that pooled commercial taxes across seven counties.
- One-county school districts, such as Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, in Northern Virginia that have greater resources available to address local problems.
- Creation of magnet schools to allow students with outstanding achievement to excel in programs that may not be offered by their home district.
- Seven regions of the country have developed voluntary inter-district transfer programs that allow students from urban districts with high poverty to attend schools in neighboring suburban districts where poverty levels are much lower.