Coalition for Glen Cove

Bob Lupinskie Supports Glen Cove Schools at Coalition for Glen Cove Meeting

At its July meeting the Coalition for Glen Cove elected Doug Brown as vice-president and re-elected Donald Scarl, president, Ronnie Lavine, secretary, and Lorri Prince, treasurer.

Invited speaker Bob Lupinskie, who retired at the end of June after ten years on the Glen Cove School Board, emphasized that the Glen Cove public schools are very good and that the school board, the school administration, and the teachers have been working to keep them that way.

“It is easy for the people of Glen Cove to get the impression that our schools are not doing well because public schools in general have been under attack nationally for over fifty years. A small number of people, some of whom would like to see public schools replaced by private schools, have been distorting data about Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs) and other tests to try to make us believe that our schools are failing. In fact, American public schools are doing very well, but, of course, they could be still better,” said Lupinskie. “The myth that America’s schools have been better in the past is one that we have heard for almost a hundred years and one that has been untrue for all of that time. In fact, we are doing a better and better job of educating more and more of our population including disadvantaged and disabled children.”

“One of the things that has been shown in study after study is that test scores across the country, and across Long Island, too, depend heavily on students’ family income and on the level of their parents’ education. Glen Cove has quite a few students from low-income, low education families, as well as quite a few students whose families move from school district to school district more often than the average family. Our school system does a good job in educating these students, just as it does a good job of educating those students from wealthier and more stable families. Very few Glen Cove students drop out of school before they graduate and about 90% of our graduates go on to college. The small fraction of Glen Cove students who choose to attend private and parochial schools has remained almost constant for many years, showing that students and parents believe that the Glen Cove public schools provide a good education in a safe and encouraging atmosphere.”