New York school board elections, 2016

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Elections

Most general elections for New York school boards were May 17, 2016. Five districts, referred to collectively as the "Big 5," are not subject to the same election laws as the other districts. Thirteen districts in New York among America's largest school districts by enrollment held elections for 37 seats. One of those districts, Buffalo Public Schools, is part of the Big 5 and had its election on May 3, 2016. Special elections for unexpired terms were held in conjunction with the general election cycle.

Here are several quick facts about New York's school board elections in 2016:

• The largest school district by enrollment with an election in 2016 was Buffalo Public Schools with 34,854 K-12 students.
• The smallest New York school district among the nation's top 1,000 largest with an election in 2016 was Utica City School District with 9,717 K-12 students.
• Buffalo Public Schools had most seats on the ballot among New York's largest districts with six seats up for election.
• Utica City School District had the fewest seats on the ballot among New York's largest districts with one seat up for election.

The districts listed below served 172,509 K-12 students during the 2013-2014 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Click on the district name for more information on the district and its school board elections.

2016 New York School Board Elections
District	General date	Regular term (years)	Seats up for election	Total board seats	Student enrollment
Buffalo Public Schools	5/3/2016	3/5	6	9	34,854
Brentwood Union Free School District	5/17/2016	3	2	7	17,963
Greece Central School District	5/17/2016	3	3	9	11,434
Middle Country Central School District	5/17/2016	3	3	9	10,299
New Rochelle School District	5/17/2016	5	2	9	10,922
Newburgh Enlarged City School District	5/17/2016	3	4	9	11,495
Sachem Central School District	5/17/2016	3	3	9	14,061
Schenectady City School District	5/17/2016	3	2	7	9,921
Shenendehowa Central School District	5/17/2016	3	3	7	9,758
Smithtown Central School District	5/17/2016	3	2	7	10,062
Utica City School District	5/17/2016	5	1	7	9,717
Wappingers Central School District	5/17/2016	3	3	9	11,703
Williamsville Central School District	5/17/2016	3	3	9	10,320

Issues

Common Core testing opt outs stay the same despite reform efforts

See also: Battles over school governance (2016)

One in five New York students opted out of taking the state's Common Core-aligned tests in April 2015, and early reports from the state's testing one year later showed little had changed. Though the state had created a panel to recommend and implement changes to the test as well as the teacher evaluations it was tied to after the 2015 opt-outs, parents still chose to keep their students home on test days in 2016.

Statewide in 2015, more than 155,000 students opted out of English and language arts (ELA) testing, according to United to Counter, a group that opposes Common Core standards. This was an increase from approximately 49,000 student opt-outs for the same state test in 2014.

New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D) called the large number of students opting out of state testing assessments in 2015 a "concern" and said that state lawmakers would have to take a "macro look" at the issue of classroom testing.

Opponents of the test said that testing took too much time away from the classroom and did not allow for creative thinking. The New York Department of Education said standardized testing helped ensure that the state's most vulnerable students did not get ignored. Leaders of New York State United Teachers spoke out against state testing in the weeks leading up to the 2015 exam dates. They said they opposed the exams because they were not valid indicators of student progress and because the results of those exams would be tied to teacher evaluations.

Tying the test results to teacher evaluations was suggested by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in March 2015. He suggested 50 percent of the Annual Professional Performance Reviews for teachers be tied to their students' results.

Election trends

Trends in New York school board elections

See also: School boards in session: 2015 in brief

The 2015 school board elections in New York's largest school districts attracted fewer candidates per seat on the ballot compared to the state's 2014 elections. Both years saw the same number of seats go unopposed. Newcomers fared better in the 2015 elections, with 56.82 percent winning a seat. In 2014, 40.43 percent of newcomers won a school board seat.

The following sections analyze competitiveness and incumbency advantage in New York's school board elections. Two of the 16 districts that held elections in 2015 held primary elections. Those two districts also held partisan elections in which candidates ran with political party designations. The other school districts held nonpartisan, general elections in which winners only had to receive a plurality, or relative majority, of votes to secure a seat.

Details of the data discussed here can be found in the table below.

Competitiveness

In 2015, school board elections held in New York's largest school districts had an average of 1.66 candidates run per seat. The was lower than the average 2.02 candidates who ran per seat up for election in 2014. Eleven seats—25.00 percent of those on the ballot—were unopposed in 2015. The 2014 elections also had 11 seats go unopposed, which was 23.40 percent of those on the ballot.

Incumbency advantage

See also: School board incumbency analysis: 2015 in brief

A total of 67.86 percent of incumbents whose seats were on the ballot in 2015 ran for re-election. Twenty-eight of the 44 incumbents whose terms were up for re-election ran to retain their seats, and 19 of them won. Seven of those winners ran unopposed; the other 11 kept their seats by defeating challengers.

In 2014, incumbents had a higher success rate. A total of 82.35 percent of those who ran to keep their seats won re-election. Thirty-four of the 47 incumbents whose terms were up for re-election ran to retain their seats, and 28 of them won. Eight of those winners ran unopposed, while the other 20 incumbents defeated challengers to win their bids for re-election.

The map below details the success rates for incumbents who ran in the 2015 school board elections that were held in the largest school districts by enrollment in the U.S.

The map above details the success rates of incumbent who ran to retain their school board seats in the largest school districts in each state. States depicted in gray did not hold school board elections.

Data table

New York school board elections, 2014 - 2015
	2014	2015
All candidates
Seats up	47	44
Candidates	95	73
Candidates/seat	2.02	1.66
Unopposed seats	11	11
% unopposed	23.40%	25.00%
% seats won by newcomers	40.43%	56.82%
Incumbents
Sought re-election	34	28
Unopposed	8	7
Retained	28	19
% retained	82.35%	67.86%

Academic performance

See also: Public education in New York

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Education terms
For more information on education policy terms, see this article.
School board elections portal Glossary of education terms School choice on the ballot Education on the ballot

NAEP scores

See also: NAEP scores by state

The National Center for Education Statistics provides state-by-state data on student achievement levels in mathematics and reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The table below presents the percentage of fourth and eighth grade students that scored at or above proficient in reading and math during school year 2012-2013. Compared to three neighboring states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), New York had the lowest percentage of students score at or above proficient in every category.

Percent of students scoring at or above proficient, 2012-2013
	Math - Grade 4	Math - Grade 8	Reading - Grade 4	Reading - Grade 8
New York	40%	32%	37%	35%
Massachusetts	58%	55%	47%	48%
New Jersey	49%	49%	42%	46%
Pennsylvania	44%	42%	40%	42%
United States	41%	34%	34%	34%
Source: United States Department of Education, ED Data Express, "State Tables"

Graduation, ACT and SAT scores

See also: Graduation rates by groups in state and ACT and SAT scores in the United States

The following table shows the graduation rates and average composite ACT and SAT scores for New York and surrounding states during the 2012-2013 school year. All statements made in this section refer to that school year.

In the United States, public schools reported graduation rates that averaged to about 81.4 percent. About 54 percent of all students in the country took the ACT, while 50 percent reported taking the SAT. The average national composite scores for those tests were 20.9 out of a possible 36 for the ACT, and 1498 out of a possible 2400 for the SAT.

New York schools reported a graduation rate of 76.8 percent during the 2012-2013 school year, lowest among its neighboring states.

In New York, more students took the SAT than the ACT in 2013, earning an average SAT score of 1463.

Comparison table for graduation rates and test scores, 2012-2013
State	Graduation rate, 2013		Average ACT composite, 2013		Average SAT composite, 2013
	Percent	Quintile ranking**	Score	Participation rate	Score	Participation rate
New York	76.8%	Fourth	23.4	26%	1463	76%
Massachusetts	85%	Second	24.1	22%	1553	83%
New Jersey	87.5%	First	23	23%	1521	78%
Pennsylvania	85.5%	Second	22.7	18%	1480	71%
United States	81.4%		20.9	54%	1498	50%
**Graduation rates for states in the first quintile ranked in the top 20 percent nationally. Similarly, graduation rates for states in the fifth quintile ranked in the bottom 20 percent nationally. Sources: United States Department of Education, "ED Data Express" ACT.org, "2013 ACT National and State Scores" The Commonwealth Foundation, "SAT scores by state, 2013"

Dropout rate

See also: Public high school dropout rates by state for a full comparison of dropout rates by group in all states

The high school event dropout rate indicates the proportion of students who were enrolled at some time during the school year and were expected to be enrolled in grades nine through 12 in the following school year but were not enrolled by October 1 of the following school year. Students who have graduated, transferred to another school, died, moved to another country, or who are out of school due to illness are not considered dropouts. The average public high school event dropout rate for the United States remained constant at 3.3 percent for both school year 2010–2011 and school year 2011–2012. The event dropout rate for New York was higher than the national average at 3.6 percent in the 2010-2011 school year, and 3.8 percent in the 2011-2012 school year.

State profile

State profile

Demographic data for New York
	New York	U.S.
Total population:	19,747,183	316,515,021
Land area (sq mi):	47,126	3,531,905
Race and ethnicity**
White:	64.6%	73.6%
Black/African American:	15.6%	12.6%
Asian:	8%	5.1%
Native American:	0.4%	0.8%
Pacific Islander:	0%	0.2%
Two or more:	2.9%	3%
Hispanic/Latino:	18.4%	17.1%
Education
High school graduation rate:	85.6%	86.7%
College graduation rate:	34.2%	29.8%
Income
Median household income:	$59,269	$53,889
Persons below poverty level:	18.5%	11.3%
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey" (5-year estimates 2010-2015) Click here for more information on the 2020 census and here for more on its impact on the redistricting process in New York. **Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

Presidential voting pattern

See also: Presidential voting trends in New York

New York voted for the Democratic candidate in all six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020.

Pivot Counties (2016)

Ballotpedia identified 206 counties that voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012. Collectively, Trump won these Pivot Counties by more than 580,000 votes. Of these 206 counties, 18 are located in New York, accounting for 8.74 percent of the total pivot counties.

Pivot Counties (2020)

In 2020, Ballotpedia re-examined the 206 Pivot Counties to view their voting patterns following that year's presidential election. Ballotpedia defined those won by Trump won as Retained Pivot Counties and those won by Joe Biden (D) as Boomerang Pivot Counties. Nationwide, there were 181 Retained Pivot Counties and 25 Boomerang Pivot Counties. New York had 14 Retained Pivot Counties and four Boomerang Pivot Counties, accounting for 7.73 and 16.00 percent of all Retained and Boomerang Pivot Counties, respectively.

More New York coverage on Ballotpedia

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See also

New York	School Boards	News and Analysis
Public education in New York List of school districts in New York	School board elections, 2016 New York school board elections, 2015 New York school board elections, 2014	Education reform at the state and local levels (2016) School boards in session: 2015 in brief Analysis of spending in America's largest school districts Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey