OK,Teachers..help me resond to this on "Huge budget cuts for schools"

[w8liftinglady]

Editorial in my paper today

http://www.thedailylight.com/articles/2010/12/10/opinion/doc4d02ef724fe69657405025.txt

AUSTIN – It’s time we connect the dots between public school spending and student progress. It appears it has been done, and we have the legislature and Comptroller to thank for it.

The report reminds us that Texas public education spending nearly doubled during the last decade, increasing from $28 billion to nearly $55 billion since the 1998-99 school year. Even after taking enrollment growth into account, spending per-pupil rose by nearly 63%. With a large anticipated state budget shortfall, even education spending will be subject to the chopping block.

The Comptroller rolled out a reporting feature www.FASTexas.org which is a powerful tool that allows comparisons of school districts and campuses across academic and financial indicators.

The report addresses savings from architectural prototypes (something AFP and Odessa-based Captain Watchdog Jason Moore have long advocated) to organizing transportation cooperatives, from helping school districts place their finances online to eliminating the 22-student limit for each classroom.

Why is this all important? In Texas, public school spending per student has increased by 63 percent in a decade, outpacing both enrollment and inflation.

Public school payroll costs, at $32.5 billion, account for nearly 60 percent of all school spending. But administration has grown more rapidly than teachers, and Texas would have to eliminate 1,571 administrative positions to reach the 1998-99 ratios.

The new report released Wednesday by the Texas Comptroller also notes that the growth of administrators in the last decade has increased by 36 percent compared to an increase of 27 percent for teachers.

The report identifies which school districts have both good student progress AND spend tax dollars wisely. Other schools can look to the leaders to find out how they do it. We at Americans for Prosperity will be advocating citizens use this tool and help local districts achieve better results without overspending.

The report provides suggestions, action needed, benefits, and identifies what saves money. It’s long overdue, and we thank Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler and the legislature for connecting the dots, studying education performance and spending.

The report is available at: http://www.fastexas.org/

Peggy Venable

Director of Americans for Prosperity-Texas

[noamnety]

1. My first thought is to look at where the money went.

Increases in per pupil funding might simply mean that fuel (bussing) costs increased, or health care for staff increased at a huge rate. Health care increases ate our salary increases for the last several years at my school. (We've been under a pay freeze because our other expenses have increased). Their assumptions about why costs went up may be wrong.

And also, there is probably some truth in the admin costs going up disproportionately. In government jobs, typically salary increases are done by percents, not a fixed amount. So over the years the rich get richer and the poor get poorer despite everyone claiming that things were equitable. So in 1990 if a teacher made 50K and an administrator made 80k, and they each get a 2% annual increase, you get something like this:

1990 50000 80000
1991 51000 81600
1992 52020 83232
1993 53060 84897
1994 54122 86595
1995 55204 88326
1996 56308 90093
1997 57434 91895
1998 58583 93733
1999 59755 95607
2000 60950 97520
2001 62169 99470
2002 63412 101459
2003 64680 103489
2004 65974 105558
2005 67293 107669
2006 68639 109823
2007 70012 112019
2008 71412 114260
2009 72841 116545
2010 74297 118876
2011 75783 121253

At the start, the administration makes 30k more than the teacher, after 20 years they make 45k more and that discrepancy becomes the new norm for new hires. I always thought it would be more fair if we looked not at the overall percent of increases, averaged it, and gave everyone that. So instead of a thousand dollar increase for teachers and a 1600 dollar increase for administrators, give everyone a flat 1200 increase - or whatever it works out to with the ratio of administrators and teachers).

Are the school finances in Texas not online right now? In MI we have a reporting requirement to put all our financial reports on our school websites, with standardized headings, a standardized clickable logo at the top of the homepage. Both traditional and charters have to post management costs, lobbying costs, salary costs, with more details for any employees who earn over 100k a year, on and on.

[w8liftinglady]

2. You are right-the overspending has been on the management side.Unfortunately

..as it has done in the past...Texas will cut the budget by cutting teachers,teachers assistants,upgrades for schools.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. When the crime rate goes up do we consider reducing law enforcement's budget?

Do we blame police officers and threaten to reduce their pay? Or base it on the crime rate?

Do we even discuss reducing the fire dept's budget when the number of fires increases?

When we have a higher rate of traffic accidents, do we then consider spending less on our roads??

Yet the first thing the education haters propose is reducing the budget when achievement goes down.

It's insane and makes zero sense.

[ladjf]

4. "Students, you live in a Country where the rich people want all

of the money. Therefore, next year, half of the faculty will be fired and all other funds will be cut in half."

[Reader Rabbit]

5. A lot of education funds are going towards the testing/data craze.

In addition to paying for all the tests and gadgets to collect, tabulate, and assess the data, many districts are dedicating personnel to data assessment, rather than classroom teaching. A number of schools have teachers who only teach half the day and crunch numbers the other half. Our district even hired a new "superintendent of data" a few years back.

School districts are a public entity. You should be able to get a breakdown of where all the money goes.