Edgemont budget web site

I just learned of a new web site entitled "Support Edgemont Schools." The site urges a yes vote on the school budget on May 16 (a position with which I concur).

It also has lots of other goodies about the budget.

RIP, Dana Morosini Reeve

Photo: USA Today

Image from wcbstv.com

Saddest e-mail of the week came from an old friend who went to Edgemont with me decades ago:

Dana Reeve just died... I ran x-country when she was a senior and I was a freshman – she was the nicest person – makes me really sad

More here.

Edgemont Village?

The Edgemont Village Exploratory Committee's work is done now that the group has written its white paper evaluating the various legal and economic issues of creating a village. The committee ultimately did not make a recommendation to become a village or not, in part because opinions within the committee were divided.

From today's Journal News however, it now looks as if some residents are likely to form a committee to pursue incorporation:

Resident Bob Bernstein will form a group to put forth a proposal for incorporating the community into Greenburgh's seventh village, he said yesterday.

Bernstein, a member of the now-disbanded Edgemont Village Exploratory Committee, which studied the issue for 18 months, made the announcement a day after the committee presented the results of their final report.

"At this point, we fully intend to put together a petition drive, but not before we have met the challenges that the EVEC report identifies," he said.

Should be interesting.

EVEC final report

The Edgemont Village Exploratory Committee (EVEC) will deliver its final report tonight at a meeting at 8 p.m. at the high school. I'll give a brief overview of the EVEC process before the substance of the presentation--reports from the economics committee and the governance committee.

The white paper giving EVEC's findings will be available tonight at the meeting in hard copy (for the first 250 people, anyway). It should be available in pdf form through a link from the EVEC home page. (Unfortunately, I am unable to open the pdf file on my computer; not sure why. It's working fine now.)

The committee has done admirable work both in modeling the economics of a potential Edgemont village and in answering many of the legal questions inherent in becoming a village. Kudos to those who were active on those two committees.

The EVEC white paper stops short of making a recommendation as to whether or not to proceed towards becoming a village. It does however give a solid foundation of analysis of the ecomomic and governance implications of becoming a village.

------------------
Disclosure/disclaimer: While I am an officer of EVEC, the writing and opinions on this web site are mine alone and do not represent EVEC or any other organization or person.

Observations on the Edgemont budget vote data

If we think of the Edgemont residents who voted yesterday as the universe of budget voters, we can do some interesting analysis. We now know that within that universe are 1599 yes voters and 717 no voters. What else do we know?

No voters were much more likely than yes voters to vote in the first election, last month. Fully three-quarters of no voters voted last month compared with only one-third of yes voters.

This produced some interesting phenomena. Even though yes voters outnumbered no voters by 2-¼ to 1, the first vote was virtually a dead heat with a slight edge going to the no votes. This also means that of the "new" votes in the second election (that is, votes incremental to the votes in the first election) 86% were yes votes. For every one new no vote, there were more than six new yes votes.

Why were no voters so much more motivated than their adversaries in the first vote? Here are two reasons, each of which I suspect played a part:

• Sense of urgency. No voters had more of a burning platform (definition), a compelling reason to take action, in the first vote. Frustrated with double-digit tax increases, they wanted to be heard. Yes voters, on the other hand, were complacent. Perhaps because they assumed the budget would pass, they saw no urgency to vote.
  
• Communication. In the lead-up to the first election, a vote no letter went out to the electorate; and three-quarters of no voters voted. A similar vote no letter and phone calls went out before the second election with a fairly small incremental impact on the no vote. By contrast, no similar effort was made to stir up the yes voters before the first vote, and only a third of yes voters showed up. Before the second election, vote yes letters and advertisements were widespread, and the yes vote tripled.

The above analysis assumes that voters in the first election voted the same way in the second election. Some anecdotal evidence suggests this to be true. However it is certainly plausible that some no voters, once they understood the implications of an austerity budget, switched to yes, or that some yes voters, once they calculated the impact on their pocketbooks, switched to no. I suspect, however, that switchers were not numerous.

----------------------------------------------------
The numbers

For the nerds (or elroys, for those familiar with EHS lingo of a few decades back) in the readership who want to do their own analysis, here are the numbers:

• May 17 vote (budget defeated):
• Yes: 535 (50%)
• No: 542 (50%)
• Total: 1077 (100%)
  
• June 16 vote (budget passed):
• Yes: 1599 (69%)
• No: 717 (31%)
• Total: 2316 (100%)
  
• "New" Votes (Incrementally new votes in the second election):
• Yes: 1064 (86%)
• No: 175 (14%)
• Total: 1239 (100%)
  
• Rate of increase between the two elections:
  • Yes: +199%
  • No: +32%
  • Total: +115%

Edgemont school budget passes

I have been told that the budget passed by a margin of 1599 in favor to 717 opposed (and 19 contested ballots). (My undocumented prediction had been that the budget would pass by 200 to 300 votes. So much for my prognostication talent.)

You may recall the numbers from the May 17 budget defeat: 535 in favor to 542 opposed.

With far more publicity, letters and the like this time, the no vote went up by 32% while the yes vote increased by 199%. Seems the silent majority in Edgemont were for the budget.

If the informal conversations I had are representative, many folks stayed home the first time on the assumption that the vote would pass, but went to the polls when it turned out their votes might matter.

Several take-aways:

• The school board needs to get its act together on communicating effectively with the public the first time round.
  
• The board should assume that even if nobody shows up at budget meetings to lobby for lower spending and taxes, there is an implicit and always-present community need to keep spending and taxes as low as possible, consistent with a world-class education.
  
• To be effective, residents who want to ensure fiscally responsible budgets should speak loudly and firmly during the budgeting process. This is likely to be far more effective--and constructive--than speaking out during the voting process.
  
• When it matters, Edgemont residents will vote for the schools.

-----------------------------
Update (June 16, 11 p.m.): The Edgemont web site is running the headline "Budget passes!" with unofficial numbers. The numbers on the site may contain a typo. They read 1799 yes, 717 no, 19 contested. I think the 1799 is supposed to be 1599 (which would be in accord with two sources who were at the school for the reading of the results).As of the 9:40 a.m. on June 17, the numbers on the Edgemont site jibe with mine.

Greenstein letter to Vaughan on the Edgemont school budget

Edgemont resident Arnold Greenstein recently wrote the following letter to Jack Vaughan in response to earlier communication from Vaughan. (I reprint Greenstein's letter here with permission of the author.) Greenstein has also written a letter on the Edgemont budget to The Journal News.


(Click on above images to open letter in new window.)

Here is the text of the letter:

Mr. Jack Vaughan, President
Edgemont Education Committee for Fiscal Responsibility

I am one of the “two-thirds” of the residents that does not have a child in the schools. I have not had a child in school for ten years. I used to work in finance, but currently I’m a teacher, and my wife has been a teacher in Edgemont for over twenty years. Years ago I served on the School Board’s financial advisory committee. So, even though I support education, I too was astounded when I first saw the Board’s proposed tax increase. But after some investigation and reflection, I have come to a different perspective on the budget, and I believe that it is necessary to pass the current budget.

As educators, my wife and I have difficulty keeping up with increasing taxes and spiraling costs. Although you think teacher salaries are exhorbitant, I don’t know any teachers that can afford to buy a house in Edgemont without some form of additional income.

It is, however, unfortunate that you use misleading and inaccurate “facts” to inflame sentiment against an incredibly successful and well managed school district. Your percentages are stated in a very misleading way. “Teacher salaries increased 25% in the last three years... in the face of record low inflation,” seems to intentionally imply that teachers are making 25% more than they did three years ago. You must know that this is untrue. This increase is due to adding more teachers because of increasing enrollments. If you’ve investigated this at all, you know that salary increases were 2.9% and 3.1% in the last two years compared to the 2.7% cost of living increase. And Edgemont teachers are paid at the median of districts in Westchester (less than in Scarsdale, for instance). You must know that these kinds of mis-statements are erroneous and inflamatory.

In your first letter, you state, “An average Edgemont home assessed at $25,000...” and in your second letter you say, “an average Edgemont home assessed at $30,000...” I was unaware that a re-assessment took place in the past month. The last time I checked, the average assessment was about $22,000. Where are you getting these numbers? I can’t help but think that you are making them up as you go along.

Most of your other “percentages” are either wrong or misleading. I wonder where you obtained the figure that “two thirds of our community do not have children in the schools.” I don’t think this number is verifiable and am curious as to your source. You seem to be implying, however, that we’re paying for someone else’s child’s education. Have you considered that the average taxpayer pays for less than half of their own child’s education. If you have a child in the schools for 12 years, it takes 24 years to cover one child’s education. And if you’ve had two children in the schools, it’s 48 years.

Another example is your statement that it costs “~$20,000/student to send a child to Edgemont schools.” According to Westchester Magazine last month, Edgemont’s per pupil expenditure was $16,163 last year. Your figure is off by 25%. Edgemont is the top rated school district in Westchester and one of the top rated school districts in the country. It has been for over twenty years. And yet, our per pupil cost (according to Westchester Magazine) is $2,000 per pupil less than second rated Chappaqua ($18,200 per pupil), $5,000 less than #3 Briarcliff ($21,183), and $3,700 less than #7 rated Scarsdale ($19,873). Why can’t you rely on the correct numbers? Why are you trying to be inflammatory? Many of your other numbers are equally agregious, but it would take a much longer letter to go through them all.

Your solution is to vote down the budget. You show little regard for the educational environment. You want the board to negotiate teacher contracts that would make our teachers among the lowest paid in Westchester. You want to take away sports and co-curricular activities from students. You want to increase class size. I would prefer productive, positive solutions. Edgemont residents have enjoyed an increase in home values that astronomically exceeds the increase in real estate taxes. Your reliance on percentages belies the fact that a 30% increase in taxes over 3 years may be a couple of thousand dollars while a 30% increase in property values represents hundreds of thousands of dollars. I will gladly pay an extra thousand dollars in taxes to realize a two or three hundred thousand dollar increase in my real estate value. Even if I never plan on selling my home, if necessary, I can easily go to the bank and extract some of the equity, pay my taxes and put a couple of hundred thousand dollars in my pocket. This is only possible because of the quality of our schools.

People pay exhorbitant real estate prices for homes in our community because of the schools. I am terrified that if the budget is defeated this will no longer be the case. Students are not admitted to the best colleges without sports and extra-curricular activites on their applications. Eliminating teachers will curtail many activities and increase class size. Parents will no longer pay higher real estate prices to send their kids to a school district that eliminates sports, cuts extra curricular activities and increases class size.

Edgemont is Magic. I have to applaud the Board, Administration, teachers and staff for creating and maintaining a World Class school district, and spending less doing it than very similar communites. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but I wouldn’t fool with it. There are many other school districts, in very similar communities, that are spending significantly more money, and haven’t achieved the same results. My Edgemont home is the best investment I have ever made. There are many ways of using your substantial home equity to offset your taxes. I don’t know of any other investment or institution that provides the kind of returns, for our children, our community and our pocketbooks than the Edgemont schools. You are unnecessarilly threatening our schools, our children’s futures and our real estate values.

Sincerely,

Arnold Greenstein
Moorland Drive

"Edgemont is Magic": Greenstein letter on Edgemont budget

Edgemont resident Arnold Greenstein recently wrote the following letter in support of the school budget. (I reprint Greenstein's letter here with permission of the author.) Greenstein has also written a letter to Jack Vaughan on similar issues, available here.


(Click on above image to open letter in new window.)

Here is the text of the letter:

Editor, The Journal News
letters@thejournalnews.com
June 13, 2005

Edgemont is Magic. Edgemont is a World Class school district that is run at a cost below that of many similar districts. According to last month’s Westchester Magazine, Edgemont was the #1 rated school district in Westchester and the per pupil cost was $16,163, $2,000 per pupil less than second rated Chappaqua ($18,200 per pupil), $5,000 less than #3 Briarcliff ($21,183), and $3,700 less than #7 rated Scarsdale ($19,873).

However, there is an organization in the community that would like to vote down the current school budget. They have sent two letters, full of misleading, inaccurate and inflammatory “facts.” Their statement, for instance, that “Teacher salaries increased 25% in the last three years... in the face of record low inflation,” seems to intentionally imply that teachers are making 25% more than they did three years ago. They must know that this is untrue. This increase is due to adding more teachers because of increasing enrollments. Salary increases averaged 3% in the last two years compared to the 2.7% cost of living increase. And Edgemont teachers are paid at the median of districts in Westchester (less than in Scarsdale, for instance).

Their solution to an admittedly high tax increase is to vote down the budget. They show little regard for the educational environment. They want the board to negotiate teacher contracts that would make our teachers among the lowest paid in Westchester. They want to take away sports and co-curricular activities from students. They want to increase class size. It’s too bad they don’t put their time and effort into productive, positive solutions.

Edgemont residents have enjoyed an increase in home values that astronomically exceeds the increase in real estate taxes. Is an extra thousand dollars in taxes worth a hundred thousand dollar increase in real estate value? Even if I never plan on selling my home, if necessary, I can go to the bank and extract some of its equity, pay my taxes and put a couple of hundred thousand dollars in my pocket. This is only possible because of the quality of our schools. It is not possible in many neighboring districts.

I have to applaud the Board, administration, teachers and staff for creating and maintaining a World Class school district, and spending less money doing it than any other similar community. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but I wouldn’t fool with it. My Edgemont home is the best investment I have. There are ways of using your substantial home equity to offset your taxes. I don’t know of any other investment or institution that provides the kind of returns, for our children, our community and our pocketbooks than the Edgemont schools. Please do not unnecessarily threaten our schools, our children’s futures and our real estate values.

Arnold Greenstein
Moorland Drive

EHS budget

Remember to vote yes on the Edgemont school budget on Thursday, June 16, in the EHS gym.

Edgemont school budget revote

Today's Journal News covers last Tuesday's school board meeting about the budget in an article entitled "Edgemont schools to resubmit same budget."

The re-vote on the budget will be June 16. Absentee ballot applications should be available now at the district office at Edgemont High School.

Edgemont budget in the New York Times

Edgemont schools superintendent Nancy Taddiken was quoted in an article on school budgets in today's New York Times:

Before any vote, most school boards are holding another round of public meetings to discuss the budgets with local taxpayers. But many officials are not optimistic about such meetings, pointing out that most of those who usually attend already favor proposed increases.

"We did not hear from anyone who was angry or against the proposal," said Nancy Taddiken, superintendent of Edgemont schools, where an 11 percent spending increase lost by 7 votes. "However people voted, we want them to come and talk to us. We want to listen to what people feel in order to move forward."

Ms. Taddiken acknowledged that many residents may well be frustrated by double-digit percentage increases in their property tax bills several times in recent years. The proposed school spending plan would create a 12-percent increase in the tax levy.

Presumably when Taddiken said she had not heard from those against the proposed budget, she was speaking about the school board meetings many weeks ago when the budget proposal was openly discussed. From what I hear, at those meetings the anti-budget, keep-our-taxes-down voices were silent indeed.

Unfortunately, today's Times article makes it look like Taddiken was saying that the no voices have not been heard recently, when in fact no voices were articulately represented at the recent public hearing. Taddiken knows this well and would not have expressed anything otherwise to a journalist.

I suspect that either the Times reporter misquoted Taddiken, or the article was written before the recent hearings but not published until today (rendering once-true statements to be no longer true). Either way, the reporter did Taddiken and the community a disservice.

Chart of budget growth for Westchester schools

Interesting chart in today's New York Times. Apparently Edgemont per-pupil budgets have grown less in the past four years than those of the school districts immediately to our west.

Source: NY Times, with "Edgemont" annotation by D. Stern
(Click on image to enlarge in separate window.)

$10,000 campaigns for school board?

I received an e-mail this morning soliciting donations for a school board campaign in Cambridge, Mass. According to the message, campaigns there have been costing about $10,000.

I suspect that a lot of good people do not run for the Cambridge board because they are uncomfortable asking for mone, spending their own money and publicly campaigning.

Makes me appreciate the nominating committee process in Edgemont. Since no public campaigns are needed, good, well-screened people who are remiss to campaign can and do serve on our board.

If and when this process breaks down, it could be all to easy to slide down the slippery slope to where Cambridge, Mass is now: five-figure campaigns and out-of-state solicitations for funds.

Edgemont budget hearing debrief

Tuesday evening the school board conducted an open hearing on the school budget. Hundreds of people showed up, and many tens of people made statements for the record. Members of the board itself did not speak for or against the budget, I gather because they are limited in what they can say by state law. (Also, board president Richard Glickstein said the purpose of the hearing was to listen to the community, not so speak.) Glickstein and superintendent Nancy Taddiken did answer some direct questions.

Following are some of the key points from speakers on each side of the budget issue.

• Points from the "I voted against the budget" crowd:
  
  
  • Double-digit tax increases are too high and not sustainable.
  • Perhaps the board did not not look under every rock to keep the budget low.
  • The board could and should have done a much better job communicating to the public about issues related to the budget.
  
  
• Points from the "I voted for the budget" crowd:
  
  
  • Our schools are important; we want our kids to get the best education possible; good schools help property values.
    
  • An austerity budget would be bad for the schools.
  • The bulk of the increases this year were non-discretionary (e.g., nationally-mandated accounting changes, contractual obligations, assessed real estate value in the district lower this year than last, etc.)
  • We have faith in our board.
    

For the record I agree with every one of the above statements, on both sides.

I voted for the budget, but grimaced at the amount of the tax increase. I am not altogether unhappy that the first vote went (barely) against the budget, because I think it will further open eyes in the community (and the board) to the need to keep spending down.

That said, however, I think it is vital that we pass the budget the second time round.

Greenawalt

Just read Town Supervisor candidate Bill Greenawalt's resume. Wow.

Edgemont real estate

In the Sunday New York Times real estate section, I saw 11 Edgemont houses for sale. Here are the data on asking prices:

• Minimum: $829k
  
• Maximum: $2,239k
• Average (mean): $1,205k
• Median: $1,150k.

$829 k is the minimum?! Incredible. Two-thirds higher than four years ago.

Perhaps it is a biased sample (either because the selection of houses on the market this week is unusual or because only certain houses are advertised in the Times), or perhaps I've just not been keeping track of local real estate prices. And these are asking, not sale prices. But still.

Update: Are rumors of a real estate bubble exagerated? James Glassman thinks so. So does Alan Reynolds. Angry Bear thinks there is a housing bubble, but not one that will suddenly pop.

Greenburgh politics

The Journal News has an article on the upcoming Democratic primary for Greenburgh town supervisor:

When the Democratic Town Committee gathers Thursday at Town Hall to designate a candidate for supervisor, seven-term Supervisor Paul Feiner will likely be the underdog, despite 14 years of experience and a solid record of voter support.

Lawyer Bill Greenawalt, a former party chairman who is the first Democrat to mount a primary challenge to Feiner since 1993, earned the executive committee's recommendation a few weeks ago, leading some to predict that he will win the party's support...

[Feiner] may be facing the biggest test of his career as supervisor after what has been a difficult year...

In recent months, Feiner has endured a spate of political losses on issues large and small at the hands of the four other members of the all-Democratic Town Board, which has demonstrated more united opposition than perhaps at any time during Feiner's tenure as the town's top official.

The neighborhood of Edgemont is considering becoming a village; the town's six existing villages — Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington and Tarrytown — have discussed seceding from the town completely after a dispute regarding a lawsuit settlement. Many civic organizations continue to scrap with Feiner. And in the fall, critics accused him of violating ethics laws by accepting campaign funds from parties with applications pending before the town....

Arrogant or responsive?

Two years ago, with no Democratic opponent, Feiner struggled to gain party support, winning the designation with only 53 percent of the vote at the party's convention. That November, he easily defeated Republican Jim Lasser in heavily Democratic Greenburgh...

Critics of Feiner call him divisive, arrogant and dictatorial, saying he refuses to work with those who don't agree with his policies....

Madelon O'Shea, a Feiner critic and the president of the Council of Greenburgh Civic Organizations, an umbrella group, said Feiner has offended civic groups by installing his own "community liaisons" as a way of sidestepping them and has never shown a willingness to work with them.

"Paul has absolutely no respect for anybody who runs counter to what he thinks," she said....

Feiner and his supporters, however, scoff at such comments, saying he is one of the most responsive officials in the region.

"I've always been willing to compromise," Feiner said. But, he said, he will not change his beliefs on important issues in the face of opposition. And he said defiantly that he feels he doesn't need the party to succeed at the polls...

Edgemont resident Don Siegal, a Feiner booster, said he has always found Feiner to be eminently approachable.

"He does what he thinks is right for the town," Siegal said.

Here is my two cents on the two lead candidates:

Greenawalt: I do not know Greenawalt's record well, so I will not comment on it (at least until I am better educated). In national elections people talk about the "likeability" of candidates. To the degree that it matters, I give a substantial likeability edge in this election to Greenawalt. In several recent surface level interactions with him I have found him quite personable. He recently attended the Edgemont Community Council annual meeting as well as at least one meeting of the Edgemont Association.

Feiner: It's hard to beat a long-term incumbent, so I wouldn't want to bet against Feiner. His two greatest pluses--and I suspect they may be enough to carry him to re-election--are his incumbency and his remarkable responsiveness to requests from individual constituents. He also has some very loyal followers in the town. And some heated detractors. His minuses have historically been ones that, while evident to some insiders, have been transparent to the bulk of the electorate. This year, however, there does seem to be more of a mood of discontent than in the last election two years ago. Feiner's responsiveness to individuals is quite admirable; however in his desire to deal with whatever the small issue at hand is, he can lose sight of the bigger picture. And one has to wonder how it is that a long-term incumbent is not a shoo-in for nomination by his party. Also, were recent moves by some in the river villages to consider secesion and by some in Edgemont to consider incorporation driven in part by perceptions that Feiner has poor management skills?

Stay tuned.

School budget information

More details on the Edgemont school budget are available via these links:

• 2004-05 actual budget
  
• 2005-06 proposed budget
• Letter about the budget from the board of education

Announcement of open school budget meetings

Here is the announcement (from the EHS home page) of the budget meetings:


(Click on the announcement to open a slightly larger version in a new window.) In case you can't read it, here is the text:

COME AND BE HEARD ... ...

Public Hearing on the Budget

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Edgemont Junior-Senior High School LGI

8:15 pm

As you have probably heard, the 2005-2006 budget was defeated on May 17th. There were 535 yes votes and 542 no votes. By law, four options are open to us. We may:

• submit a revised budged to voters;
• resubmit the same budget to voters;
• adopt an austerity budget;
• adopt an austerity budget and submit propositions to voters.

No matter how you voted on May 17th, we urge you to come to the public hearing May 24th and express your views (or to call or write to us if you can't attend that night).

On the following Tuesday night, May 31st, at a public meeting to be heald at 8:15 pm in the Junior-Senior High School Auditorium, we will decide how to proceed. You are invited to attend this meeting as well.

The Edgemont Board of Education

Budget defeated; Board of Ed announces public hearing

From a sidebar in the May 19 Journal News:

Edgemont defeat

After reviewing contested ballots yesterday morning, Edgemont school officials declared their budget defeated by seven votes, with a final tally of 535 in favor of the budget, and 542 opposed.

Schools Superintendent Nancy Taddiken said that among eight contested ballots, two were confirmed as voters, and those votes were one for and one against. There were six voters that could not be confirmed, but Taddiken said they could not overturn the results, even if all six were in favor of the spending plan.

To learn more about the budget, get in touch with a board member or district superintendent Nancy Taddiken (914-472-7768).

Apparently the district has announced a public hearing on the budget on Tuesday, May 24, at 8:15 p.m. in the high school LGI.

Update: Here is the Journal News' tally of the election results (apparently before the two additional voters were added):

School board (two seats):
*Mark Romney - 747
*Sarah Stern - 765

Budget:
Yes - 534
No - 541

And here are the results from all the other local school districts.

Edgemont school budget (likely) defeated

Apparently the school budget was defeated today by seven votes. (And I thought the library vote was close.)

That tally includes in-person and absentee ballots. There are apparently eight contested ballots, but they are highly unlikely to have an impact. In order for them to change the election, all eight ballots (or perhaps seven--I'm not sure what happens in the event of a tie) would have to be accepted, and all the accepted ballots would have to be for the budget. Presumably that will not be the case.

The next school board meeting should be interesting.

Update: The May 18 Journal News:

In Edgemont, where the results were inconclusive late last night, the budget seemed on the verge of defeat. Assistant Superintendent Sue Shirken said she would not know until she checks today on the status of eight votes. Eight people came and voted but were not on the list of registered voters, she said.

Edgemont real estate listings

Julia B Fee has a "search by school district" feature on its web site, so you can find current Edgemont real estate listings. (I believe this includes all listings in the MLS, whether or not Julia B Fee is the broker.)

Other real estate search sites I have found make it hard to find Edgemont houses because they tend not to have the ability to search by school district. If you don't search by school district you tend to encounter the following problems:

• While all of Edgemont is in Greenburgh, Edgemont is only a small portion of Greenburgh. And Greenburgh does not have a mailing address.
  
• Some Edgemont houses have a Hartsdale mailing address (zip code 10530), but only a portion of houses with a Hartsdale mailing address are in Edgemont.
• Most Edgemont houses have a Scarsdale mailing address (zip code 10583), but only a small portion of houses with a Scarsdale mailing address are in Edgemont.
  

Edgemonts across America

Mapquest finds ten places named Edgemont in the U.S. None of them is the subject of this blog. Mapquest finds Edgemonts in

• Alabama
• Arkansas
  
• California
• Colorado
• Illinois
• Maryland (Frederick County)
• Maryland (Washington County)
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• South Dakota

Click on a state name for a map of that state's Edgemont.

Update: Yahoo Maps finds Edgemonts in eight additional states:

• Mississippi
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Virginia
• Washington
• West Virginia

Newsweek school rankings

According to a ranking in the current Newsweek, Edgemont is the 26th best public high school in the country, the fourth best in New York State and the best in Westchester County.

Two years ago, Newsweek ranked Edgemont 16th in the country, third in the state and first in the county.

It's nice to be recognized, and Edgemont certainly is a top school, but I'm skeptical of the methodology Newsweek uses. Here is Newsweek's explanation of its methodology:

Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2004 divided by the number of graduating seniors.

Seems to me that one could have a first-rate school without a high number of AP or IB tests, and similarly one could have a second- or third-rate school where lots of kids take AP or IB tests.

Does any serious observer believe that Scarsdale (#208) should be ranked 159 places worse than Dobbs Ferry (#49)? From what I know, Dobbs Ferry is indeed supposed to be an excellent school; my wife and I considered Dobbs Ferry when choosing Westchester communities (a decision in which schools played a major part). But my point is that most knowledgeable people do not consider Dobbs to be significantly better than Scarsdale.

One school (Lower Merion, PA) was ranked 121 in 2003 yet did not make the top thousand this year. Why? According to the list compilers,

the school had decided to stop paying AP test fees and stop requiring students in the courses to take the tests....

So, despite the likelihood that Lower Merion has not drastically declined as a school, its ranking has.

Updates:

• A teacher at the #9-ranked school has "a few doubts about how the study is conducted," but also seems sympathetic to the methodology:

  I understand that Mr. Mathews is looking for schools where every student is encouraged to take challenging classes and achieve as much as they possibly can. And that certainly describes our school.

• The above-cited teacher's husband weighs in:

  Yes, the criterion is mostly bogus. But as the inimitable Hans and Franz would sniff, "Complaints about the criteria are for girly-men losers!"

• Meanwhile, "self-styled recovering academic" Thomas Lifson describes survey designer Jay Matthews as

  by far, the best education writer in the country.

• Lawyer Pejman Yousefzadeh writes that it is lunacy that schools with strict academic admissions criteria like Bronx Science and Stuyvesant were omitted from the rankings.
  
  
• The Journal News has excerpted the 38 Westchester, Putnam and Rockland County schools from the list:

  School rankings
  
  The rankings were computed by taking the number of AP and/or IB tests taken by all students at a school in 2004 and dividing it by the number of graduating seniors.
  
  26. Edgemont High School
  42. Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua
  49. Dobbs Ferry High School
  96. Briarcliff High School
  97. Rye Neck High School
  98. Bronxville High School
  120. Harrison High School
  124. Hastings High School
  130. Irvington High School
  131. John Jay High School, Katonah-Lewisboro
  139. Byram Hills High School
  194. Mamaroneck High School
  198. Blind Brook High School
  208. Scarsdale High School
  232. Hendrick Hudson High School
  256. Ardsley High School
  267. Pleasantville High School
  274. Fox Lane High School, Bedford
  283. Croton Harmon High School
  292. Sleepy Hollow High School
  326. Spring Valley High School
  349. Ossining High School
  351. Clarkstown South High School, West Nyack
  365. Pelham Memorial High School
  391. North Salem High School
  457. Pearl River High School
  470. New Rochelle High School
  477. White Plains High School
  480. Tappan Zee High School, South Orangetown
  497. Eastchester High School
  500. Suffern High School
  510. Lakeland High School
  570. Haldane High School
  703. Rye High School*
  860. Somers High School
  866. Yorktown High School
  936. Clarkstown North High School, West Nyack
  1036. Woodlands High School, Greenburgh
  
  * Rye district officials say that due to their own reporting error, their district actually ranks 85th rather than 703rd.

  Note that all the schools on this list (yes, even number 1036) are in the top 4% of the 27,468 schools included in the survey.

Some useful links

Schools

• Edgemont School District: www.edgemont.org
  Includes:
  • Edgemont Junior/Senior High School
  • Greenville Elementary School
  • Seely Place Elementary School.
  
  
• Alumni: Edgemont Alumni Directory
  
  
• New York State School Report Card, 2003-2004:
  
  • Edgemont School District
    
  • Edgemont Junior/Senior High School
    
  • Greeville School
    
  • Seely Place School
    

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Government

• Town of Greenburgh: greenburghny.com
  
• County of Westchester: westchestergov.com
  
• New York State: www.state.ny.us.
  

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Local media

• The Scarsdale Inquirer
  The Inquirer gives the best coverage of Edgemont news of any commercial media. The Edgemont section is typically two full pages, and Edgemont is also on the front-page and editorial page from time to time. Unfortunately, the Inquirer does not seem to be available online.
  
  
• The Journal News
  www.nyjournalnews.com
  Westchester's Gannett-affiliated paper.
  
  
• News 12 Westchester
  www.news12.com/WC
  Cablevision's local cable news channel.
  
  

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Descriptions of Edgemont

• Realtor Julia B Fee Sotheby's International Realty's description of Edgemont
  
  
• Realtor Houlihan Lawrence's description of Edgemont
  
  
• The New York Times real estate section (11/23/2003): "If You're Thinking of Living In Edgemont; Like Neighboring Scarsdale, but Different"

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Other links of interest

• Greenburgh Nature Center (GNC)
  http://www.townlink.com/community_web/gnc/
  Located within Edgemont, the GNC is a 33-acre woodland preserve and live animal museum.
  
  
• Edgemont Village Exploratory Committee (EVEC)
  www.edgemontny.com
  Committee investigating the pros and cons of becoming a village within the Town of Greenburgh

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Note: This page subject to updating without notice.

Disclosure

I volunteer for several local organizations (e.g., ECC, EVEC, Fire Dept.), and I have family members who are or were active volunteers in a number of local organizations (e.g., school board, PTA, EVEC, Edgemont School Foundation, United Way, Westchester Community College, Westchester Medical Center).

However the views expressed on this web site are mine alone. They are not intended to reflect any other person or organization.

About me

• Family: I am a father of two three, a husband of one, a son of two and a brother of two.
  
  
• Professional: I run a small consulting and analysis firm serving healthcare practitioners and investors.
  
  
• Edgemont connection: I have been a resident of Edgemont from 2003 to the present and from 1964 to 1982. I also have various family members in the community. I volunteer for several community organizations.
  
  
• Contact me: dmcstern [at] gmail [dot] com
  

The opinions expressed on this web site are mine alone and are not intended to represent any organization or other person.

About this blog

This blog is one Edgemont resident's attempt to provide information and musings on the community of Edgemont.

I will likely update the blog irregularly.

While I volunteer for some local organizations, the opinions expressed on this web site are mine alone.