ALBANY, NY — Joseph Hernandez, Republican nominee for New York State Comptroller, pledged that on his first day in office he will open a full investigation of the Department of Education to uncover the waste, fraud, and corruption that is leaving New York’s students with one of the most expensive educations with the lowest results.
New York spends $36,293 per student statewide and $41,069 per student in New York City, among the highest rates in the nation, and another $681 million in new state funding is flowing into New York City schools this year alone. Yet according to the federal Nation’s Report Card, only 31% of New York students are proficient in reading and 32% in math.
The state tells parents a different story, claiming 53% proficiency in reading and 55% in math. This is a 22-point gap between what Albany reports and what independent federal testing shows.
That gap is no accident and since 2013, the state has lowered the minimum score required to be rated proficient on its own exams which inflates the results on paper while children fall further behind in the classroom. Meanwhile, New York City’s public charter schools outperform traditional district schools by roughly 11% in both reading and math.
“We are running the most expensive school system in America, and two-thirds of our kids cannot read or do math at grade level,” said Hernandez. “When a state has to quietly lower the passing bar to hide that failure, that is not education policy. It’s a cover-up, one filled with waste, fraud, and corruption.”
This failure has unfolded in plain sight under Governor Kathy Hochul and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. Hochul has signed budget after budget pouring money into a system without requiring a single outcome to improve. DiNapoli has held the state’s checkbook for 19 years while proficiency standards were lowered, results were inflated, and tens of billions of dollars flowed into the education bureaucracy, and the state’s chief fiscal watchdog never once demanded to know what taxpayers were getting in return.
“DiNapoli’s one job is to follow the money,” Hernandez said. “For 19 years the money went out the door, the standards went down, and the results got worse, while he stood idly by. That is not real oversight, it is complicity.”
Hernandez pledged that as Comptroller he will treat the education system’s failure as the emergency it is. On day one, he will order a comprehensive audit and investigation of the Department of Education to trace every dollar, identify waste and fraudulent spending, and expose the corruption standing between New York’s children and the education the Constitution promises them. The review will examine where per-pupil funding actually goes, how contracts and vendors are selected and paid, and why record spending keeps producing bottom-tier results, with findings referred to law enforcement wherever fraud is found.
“Parents deserve to know where $36,000 per child actually goes, and taxpayers deserve to know why the most expensive school system in America produces some of the worst results,” Hernandez added. “Our kids are constitutionally guaranteed a sound education, and Albany is robbing them of it. On day one, the audit begins.”