You may have seen this chart on the front page of today's Telegram & Gazette, accompanying an article on education funding.
Wow. I'm not clear on what some of those columns even mean.
The first column seems to be some sort of per-pupil required average minimum, something which would vary widely by population, as it costs more to fund the education of children who have special education, English language, or other needs, and the state acknowledges this in their requirements. Worcester thus would have a higher number in this column than Weston, having, as we do, significantly higher numbers of higher need pupils. It's thus a fairly meaningless number, as all it's really telling you is that Worcester has higher numbers of more expensive educational needs, which I think we all knew.
The second number, actual average spending, takes the above not-really-relevant comparison, and compounds the error by tossing the grant funding in on top of our per pupil funding. Grant funding always sounds like lots of fun money, but public voting of grants has (I hope!) demonstrated that much of this money is extremely encumbered. We can't take Title II money and use it for elementary nurses, or Title I money and use it for science labs. Money for particular things has to go to those particular things, and grant funds are going to after school programs, teacher training, school nutrition, and instructional assistants.
This is different than municipal funds, which are not restricted. If the city decides it wants nurses in every elementary school, or languages more widely taught, it can pay for them out of municipal funds.
For the point of this article--is the city doing enough when it comes to education funding, in the opinion of those running for School Committee?--a chart making the comparison of this graph would be useful, one which shows how much the actual municipality is doing when it comes to education funding. This would include, certainly, what the state requires; it would also include what the municipality does VOLUNTARILY.
How much does Worcester spend over foundation? For FY11, 0.1%.
The chart you need to make this comparison is here. (If you can't get the dropout menu to work, Worcester is LEA number 348.) The column all the way to the right, "Percent Over/Under" is the one to read down. You'll see that Worcester has only broken 1% over foundation once in the past nine years (and plenty of us have clear memories of the work we did to get the city contribution up to that 1.5%, too).
To make the comparisons the T&G did:
Weston (LEA # 330) was at 80% over foundation last year.
Cambridge (LEA # 49) chose to spend 86.2% over foundation.
Boston (LEA # 35) was at 9.9% over.
Springfield (LEA # 281) was under last year, by 2%.
Fitchburg (LEA # 97) was at 1.9% over last year.
A few more of possible interest:
Framingham (LEA # 100) 41.8%
Pittsfield (LEA # 236) 12.7%
Fall River (LEA # 95) 3.2%
Lowell (LEA # 160) 1.7%
Holyoke (LEA # 137) 2%
Southbridge (LEA # 277) 9.7%
Chicopee (LEA # 61) 1.9%
My point with this last list is this: you don't even need to go after the high numbers in the wealthy suburban districts. Compare us with other urban areas, who face the identical fiscal challenges, state budget cuts, and balancing acts on taxation.
We don't come close to measuring up on what we do for our kids in Worcester.
*the pun is not as painful as the chart. Honest.
Good post. Most people use those numbers to try to make some sort of argument and they don't understand the numbers. It's why multiple terms for a school committee member is a must. You've hit the ground running from day one and were more effective in your first six months than most school committee members in Massachusetts in their whole first term. It's posts like this where you really show the people of Worcester why they need to re-elect you.
ReplyDelete