School District Spending Across the US per pupil

[Hermod]

Very, very interesting article. Type in a school district and see what it spends per student and look at the ones around it.


http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256...-money-problem

[Wesley Mouch]

Very, very interesting article. Type in a school district and see what it spends per student and look at the ones around it.


http://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256...-money-problem

Really interesting to see. Of course Detroit at 15% over national average. Makes you want to know... why?

Are there any good studies that assess the difference between Detroit and its local peers? Is it debt? Is it transportation? Adminstration? Teachers? Support for students with disabilities?

If the problem for Detroit is funding level, then we need to understand.

[Hermod]

Those rich suburban areas spend more on their schools than do the impoverished urban cities. Right?

Detroit--$13,369
Pontiac--$13,561
Flint--$14,865

Chippewa Valley--$8,020
L'Anse Creuse--$8,995
Utica--$8,524
Rochester--$9,827

[bust]

This map immediately reminded me of the maps recently published documenting drug overdose deaths per capita, by county.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...e-us.html?_r=0

When I first saw the overdose map I was struck how New York State stands out as having much less of a problem than its neighbors, like an oasis. And how the plains states have less of a problem too, North to South. These areas roughly correspond to areas on the school spending map that see much higher than average per student spending. There are however several areas where the correlation breaks down. For example, far northern California sees a high overdose rate and high per student school spending, and Appalachia sees some of the worst overdose rates, and average to somewhat below average school spending. Besides, we know correlation does not indicate causation. But I found it interesting and thought I'd share.

Meanwhile, check out the per student school spending in New York state, where median spending is $23,370 per student. Most of the state, by geography, spends higher than that. New York City, which supplies something like 42% the state population [[I'm not sure what percentage the student population), spends $20,295 per student and actually brings the median state spending down.

http://www.syracuse.com/schools/index.ssf/2015/05/spending_per_student_nys_school_districts_2015_loo kup_compare_any_district_rank.html

Edit: There are discrepancies in the numbers reported spent per student in NYS schools districts depending on the article you read. NPR reports a NY statewide average per pupil of $17,548 vs a statewide median of $23,370 reported by Syracuse. Not sure why. Just a guess, but maybe the NPR article does not discount students who attend private schools when calculating the student population of a district. They don't list the student numbers so I can't tell for sure. Syracuse counts only those students who attend public schools. For example, they list Kiryas Joel as the district that spends the most per student, and places the student population there at only 164. It's an overwhelmingly Hasidic community with lots of kids, but those kids almost always attend religious schools. Anyways, NYS spends a lot per student...

[Dumpling]

The epidemiologists must be having interesting conversations about the spread
of the overdose epidemic. I notice that the "Black Belt" of Alabama has had a
relatively low rate of overdoses thus far. They can't be spending large amounts
on their schools. My interpretation is that there might be "tradition protection"
and "knowledge protection" against drug use and overdoses. It is true though
that overall the epidemic is spreading even into the low rate areas.

[Wesley Mouch]

...
Meanwhile, check out the per student school spending in New York state, where median spending is $23,370 per student. Most of the state, by geography, spends higher than that. New York City, which supplies something like 42% the state population [[I'm not sure what percentage the student population), spends $20,295 per student and actually brings the median state spending down.
...snip...Anyways, NYS spends a lot per student...

Any NY State stats are probably affected by NYC's unique scale and economics. That outstate is also high is even more interesting. None of it illuminates our discussion about city vs. suburbs, and whether there's some inflection point. Just how much money does DPS need to produce excellent result, in spite of the challenges [[parents, environment, racism, poverty, lead, etc.)

[BankruptcyGuy]

Measuring school districts by what they spend doesn't really capture inequities. Poorer school districts typically spend [[and receive) more, because of Title I funding for extra programming. This is done by school--so there are Title I schools in some very affluent districts.

The amount received from Title I also depends on how thorough the administration is at finding those funds.

DPS? They spend a ton on debt, for sure. But they also spend a ton on administration. No one would argue that spending on either of those directly impacts students.

In districts across our state, personnel costs make up 80-90% of total expenses. For every dollar a district spends in personnel, it must pay MPSERS another $0.30 or so. By far, the highest non-classroom expense is paying back underfunded pensions.

Articles like the NPR one cited bother me, because they make it seem like teachers and programming are where the money goes. That's not even close to true. But the truth [[pensions) doesn't make an interesting story.

[corktownyuppie]

Articles like the NPR one cited bother me, because they make it seem like teachers and programming are where the money goes. That's not even close to true. But the truth [[pensions) doesn't make an interesting story.

That's the problem with these studies. When you say "spending per student", you're doing a little bit of misleading arithmetic. "Dollars Spending per student" is just a matter of taking total spending, dividing it by the number of students, and voila!

No accounting for a teacher pension who retired in 1992 and lives in Arizona.
No accounting for a 90 year old building with years of deferred maintenance costs.
By the way, that 90 year old building costs the same to maintain whether it's 1,000 students or 500 students...that certainly affects how much is going "to the student".

And that's just the right-wing, conservative, economic argument. That's the unassailable stuff that is just plain dollars and cents. Don't even get me started about children in desperate need of social services, fear of getting raped on the way to and from school, a hard-to-fight gang culture that pulls people away from school if it doesn't kill them first.

I don't have any sacred cows here other than the children. And if you come out and say that Child A is getting $200 and Child B is getting $140, you're going to lead people to believe that Child A is getting more *benefit* than Child B.

But that's not usually the case, and that's my issue with these types of statistics.

[Hermod]

That's the problem with these studies. When you say "spending per student", you're doing a little bit of misleading arithmetic. "Dollars Spending per student" is just a matter of taking total spending, dividing it by the number of students, and voila!

No accounting for a teacher pension who retired in 1992 and lives in Arizona.
No accounting for a 90 year old building with years of deferred maintenance costs.
By the way, that 90 year old building costs the same to maintain whether it's 1,000 students or 500 students...that certainly affects how much is going "to the student".

And that's just the right-wing, conservative, economic argument. That's the unassailable stuff that is just plain dollars and cents. Don't even get me started about children in desperate need of social services, fear of getting raped on the way to and from school, a hard-to-fight gang culture that pulls people away from school if it doesn't kill them first.

I don't have any sacred cows here other than the children. And if you come out and say that Child A is getting $200 and Child B is getting $140, you're going to lead people to believe that Child A is getting more *benefit* than Child B.

But that's not usually the case, and that's my issue with these types of statistics.[/COLOR]

I would think that the higher spending/poorer outcome analysis would indicate that too much money is being leached away by the bureaucracy. Since the primary drivers are personnel costs [[to include pensions), the increased spending per pupil "should" be reflected in smaller class sizes.

[Wesley Mouch]

I would think that the higher spending/poorer outcome analysis would indicate that too much money is being leached away by the bureaucracy. Since the primary drivers are personnel costs [[to include pensions), the increased spending per pupil "should" be reflected in smaller class sizes.

So nobody knows where the money's going. But we need more, please.

Are teacher pensions appropriate? How about teacher's wages? Administrative costs per student? Adjustment for special needs? Non-pension debt? [[Pension debt is a labor cost that should be properly accrued for. Is it?)

How can we make decisions when even the most basic questions about school costs are unknowns. Just more money, please.

[Shai_Hulud]

Since the primary drivers are personnel costs [[to include pensions), the increased spending per pupil "should" be reflected in smaller class sizes.

Not if those personnel are administrators.

[Hermod]

Not if those personnel are administrators.

Which is my point. Very possibly Detroit schools may be "over administered" compared to Rochester or Utica. You have to start with the assumption that the only requirements are "teacher plus classroom plus supplies" and build from there treating everything else as "waste of money" and needs austere staffing. The problem is in a large bureaucracy like a big city school system the main drivers in a reorganization are:

1. Protect my job
2. Protect my staff
3. Increase my staff so I can get a promotion.
4. Eliminate as much hard work as possible

[corktownyuppie]

I would think that the higher spending/poorer outcome analysis would indicate that too much money is being leached away by the bureaucracy. Since the primary drivers are personnel costs [[to include pensions), the increased spending per pupil "should" be reflected in smaller class sizes.

Are personnel costs the primary driver? I'm not disputing it, I'm asking from a position of ignorance. I do know that building maintenance costs are a big issue as well.

The accounting of pensions is complicated and problematic. If pensions are funded at the point of them being awarded, then we'd be in good shape. In other words, if the teacher retiring in 1992 knew that his/her pension was fully 100% funded in 1992, then we'd be fine.

The problem is that many pensions are funded using an assumption that future funding levels will remain constant, which is a big, big, big problem. If a school district as 10,000 kids today and only 3,000 kids tomorrow -- and if the pension funding formula was relying on there being 10,000 kids as a constant -- then each future child will bear the 3x the burden as originally expected.

So, yes, you could call that a personnel cost. But it was a personnel cost that was incurred 25 years ago but paid today with today's dollars.

In which case, a more accurate headline would read "xxxx School District Receives Highest Amount Per Today's Student to Pay for Yesterday's Teachers."

[BankruptcyGuy]

Are personnel costs the primary driver? I'm not disputing it, I'm asking from a position of ignorance. I do know that building maintenance costs are a big issue as well.

The accounting of pensions is complicated and problematic. If pensions are funded at the point of them being awarded, then we'd be in good shape. In other words, if the teacher retiring in 1992 knew that his/her pension was fully 100% funded in 1992, then we'd be fine.

The problem is that many pensions are funded using an assumption that future funding levels will remain constant, which is a big, big, big problem. If a school district as 10,000 kids today and only 3,000 kids tomorrow -- and if the pension funding formula was relying on there being 10,000 kids as a constant -- then each future child will bear the 3x the burden as originally expected.

So, yes, you could call that a personnel cost. But it was a personnel cost that was incurred 25 years ago but paid today with today's dollars.

In which case, a more accurate headline would read "xxxx School District Receives Highest Amount Per Today's Student to Pay for Yesterday's Teachers."

1. Yes, personnel costs [[salaries, benefits and pension payments) make up the vast majority of school expenses. In my district, it's probably 85%. In other districts, it's even higher.

2. You raise a good point on the funding of pensions. The problem is [[and the reason they are attractive for politicians) is that the costs to fund the pension at one time are astronomical, making the permitted promise to pay in 30 years attractive. The correct result, probably, is that pensions should be cut off [[i.e. if you earned it, you've got it, but if you haven't, you're out of luck), as has occurred in the private sector. First rule when in a hole: stop digging. The public pension system is in a huge hole.

Each school district is now required to report its share of underfunded pensions. My district, with approximately 7,000 students, has a share in excess of $110,000,000.

3. You have it exactly correct on the issue of number of pupils and spreading of pension costs. The system, however, greatly benefits DPS. In the 1960's, I think I read that DPS had around 300,000 students. That would probably mean they had a staff of around 19,000. Today, they have a staff of around 3,200. If DPS was left to run its own pension, one teacher would be supporting six retirees. That won't work.

The other problem is that pension funds are allowed to declare their own expected rates of return. Their estimates are in the 8% or so range. That hasn't come to fruition, and the result is that the fund simply turns back to the taxpayer [[or effectively, today's students).

What a mess.

[Shai_Hulud]

Which is my point. Very possibly Detroit schools may be "over administered" compared to Rochester or Utica. You have to start with the assumption that the only requirements are "teacher plus classroom plus supplies" and build from there treating everything else as "waste of money" and needs austere staffing. The problem is in a large bureaucracy like a big city school system the main drivers in a reorganization are:

DPS definitely has too many administrators. Not only that, but an article a few months ago listed some DPS personnel who had much higher salaries than people in districts many times larger.

While that sounds absurd and supports the narrative about greed and waste the EM, whose job it is to make the numbers work and has the power to change them, says it's not material.

You could fire everybody in central administration and it wouldn't put a dent in the deficit," said Jack Martin, who did an 18-month stint as emergency manager that ended in January.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...fall/70469838/

Reading that quote again, I notice he says "central administration" so one could quibble with that, but if anyone should know it's the EM.

The real issue is the debt. It starts with a "b" as in billions and no amount of austerity is going to generate that kind of money in a district that has been losing income and cutting costs for more than a decade.

[Király]

I work in a public school district that includes of the most wealthy and also some of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in Canada. The fact is that poor children are much more difficult and expensive to educate. The kids from the wealthy, well-fed, well-supported-at-home families require little additional supports and can be educated cheaply. Introduce poverty, then introduce a lot more money to pay for additional supports to get those kids to levels that will be still far below their wealthy counterparts a few neighbourhoods away.

Kids are people, they're not assembly line widgets all cut from the same slab.

[Wesley Mouch]

I work in a public school district that includes of the most wealthy and also some of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in Canada. The fact is that poor children are much more difficult and expensive to educate. The kids from the wealthy, well-fed, well-supported-at-home families require little additional supports and can be educated cheaply. Introduce poverty, then introduce a lot more money to pay for additional supports to get those kids to levels that will be still far below their wealthy counterparts a few neighbourhoods away.

Kids are people, they're not assembly line widgets all cut from the same slab.

I think there's general agreement that there are challenges in educating less-wealthy students. Can you tell us a bit more about how that translates into increased costs? What are those supports?

Does Canada spend more in poor neighbourhoods and less in wealthy? How large is the variance?

[corktownyuppie]

People on the right are [[rightfully) concerned that the money is being wasted and not being used wisely. And dollar wasted is a dollar not being used to take care of the kids.

People on the left are [[rightfully) concerned that there simply is not enough funding to meet the needs of the students. Any dollar ungiven is a dollar needed to properly educate the children.

If -- and that's a big if -- people are coming to the table in good faith looking for a solution that fixes our public education system, there will be overlapping interests, and the primary objective of educating the children can be met.

The political climate, however, is toxic.

The wealthy are much better at using money wisely and cutting waste. But they also are the least equipped to understand the needs of the poor.

The poor much better understand the needs of the poor, but they don't have background and experience in managing resources in the optimal way.

What you need are people who have been poor, who have worked with the poor, who understand poverty and the unique needs that come with that. But these people also need to have experience in running large organizations, eliminating waste, using resources effectively.

You essentially need people trained in social work, education, and also have MBAs, management experience, and understand market forces, competition, and municipal funding. Oh, also, they need to understand politics because any solution will still need to be "sold" to the people.

I find most of the dialogue on public education to be hollow, because they usually come from only one of the above vantage points. What we really need are people who are trilingual/quadlingual and can see the problem from multiple perspectives.

That leadership is sorely lacking.

[BankruptcyGuy]

People on the right are [[rightfully) concerned that the money is being wasted and not being used wisely. And dollar wasted is a dollar not being used to take care of the kids.

People on the left are [[rightfully) concerned that there simply is not enough funding to meet the needs of the students. Any dollar ungiven is a dollar needed to properly educate the children.

If -- and that's a big if -- people are coming to the table in good faith looking for a solution that fixes our public education system, there will be overlapping interests, and the primary objective of educating the children can be met.

The political climate, however, is toxic.

The wealthy are much better at using money wisely and cutting waste. But they also are the least equipped to understand the needs of the poor.

The poor much better understand the needs of the poor, but they don't have background and experience in managing resources in the optimal way.

What you need are people who have been poor, who have worked with the poor, who understand poverty and the unique needs that come with that. But these people also need to have experience in running large organizations, eliminating waste, using resources effectively.

You essentially need people trained in social work, education, and also have MBAs, management experience, and understand market forces, competition, and municipal funding. Oh, also, they need to understand politics because any solution will still need to be "sold" to the people.

I find most of the dialogue on public education to be hollow, because they usually come from only one of the above vantage points. What we really need are people who are trilingual/quadlingual and can see the problem from multiple perspectives.

That leadership is sorely lacking.

Pretty well-put. There is no question that a) if you believe that education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty, and b) if you believe that you're going to have to do more for poor kids to provide an education they can use, then c) you're going to have to spend more money on that task than you do today. Will the concept of spending more on urban schools than suburban ones or rural ones, where the money isn't coming from urban tax income, but from suburban/rural taxes , fly? I don't know if I see that ever being palatable.

Those who have tried to inject expertise to the situation [[recall that emergency managers were SUPPOSED to be financial experts), have eliminated, to some extent, local control. Put differently, local control and expert management are not often the same thing.

With debt service payments removed, DPS will have tons of money to spend. How will they spend it? Will that new spending result in improved educational outcomes? If not, what do we do next?

[corktownyuppie]

Pretty well-put. There is no question that a) if you believe that education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty, and b) if you believe that you're going to have to do more for poor kids to provide an education they can use, then c) you're going to have to spend more money on that task than you do today. Will the concept of spending more on urban schools than suburban ones or rural ones, where the money isn't coming from urban tax income, but from suburban/rural taxes , fly? I don't know if I see that ever being palatable.

Those who have tried to inject expertise to the situation [[recall that emergency managers were SUPPOSED to be financial experts), have eliminated, to some extent, local control. Put differently, local control and expert management are not often the same thing.

With debt service payments removed, DPS will have tons of money to spend. How will they spend it? Will that new spending result in improved educational outcomes? If not, what do we do next?

I can't say that I disagree.

The only way to get something like that to fly is to effectively make the argument that $1.00 spent today is $10 we won't have to spend on prisons and welfare programs tomorrow.

But that will require these tri-linguals and quad-linguals to show that it's possible, show where it's been done before, and show how it can be scaled.

The good news is that it has done before. And the better news is that even mediocre improvement will make major differences. If your starting point is a broomstick on a floor, it doesn't take much to do better.

But that's only if it's done wisely. And that's where need the conversation to start from.

The national Cristo Rey program is an example of this, and we have one of their newly opened schools in SW Detroit. It's been one success story after another. Boarding school type solutions will also have large benefits, and that's been done before too.

I have friends out on the west side of Michigan. And I tell them "you don't need to support this out of the kindness of your heart". You need to support it because it's going to cost you one way or the other. Unless your plan is to secede from the state, then either support a way to solve this problem, or find ways to fund more prisons and welfare. There is no option to "not pay".

Unfortunately, only very, very, very rarely do I hear the arguments made in those terms. But that's the way this argument gets won.

[Canadian Visitor]

I think there's general agreement that there are challenges in educating less-wealthy students. Can you tell us a bit more about how that translates into increased costs? What are those supports?

Does Canada spend more in poor neighbourhoods and less in wealthy? How large is the variance?

I will try to answer some of this; though Kiraly may be much more knowledgeable than I.

Speaking about Ontario [[as schools systems in Canada are a provincial responsibility in Canada with little to no federal involvement; though typically administered through schools boards, in most provinces).

Spending per student in Toronto District School board is just over C$12,000 per pupil.

That can be arrived at from an approximate 3 Billion dollar budget, divided by 246,000 students.

***

Teacher salary and pensions are fairly generous here; however, the Ontario Teacher's pension fund is in surplus, and had a 13% return on investment last year.

For those familiar with Toronto, the Eaton Centre [[Downtown Toronto's mega mall) is owned by the Ontario Teacher's Pension fund, through their Cadillac Fairview subsidiary.

The fund's contributions are made 50% by teachers though payroll deduction and 50% matched by the province.

***

[[Credit for the following section, the Globe and Mail)

Teacher salary:


Annual starting salary for a new teacher at lowest and highest pay rates: $45,709, $55,404
Salary for a teacher with more than 10 years of service at the lowest and highest pay rates: $76,021, $94,707
[[Teachers can reach the top pay scale 10 years after starting their careers. Within each pay scale there are four groups, which are based on teachers’ education and extra training, as well as years of experience. The pay raises based on years of teaching take effect automatically.

Benefits
Teachers have an extended health-care plan that is 100-per-cent funded by the employer and dental plan funded 94 per cent by the employer. They also have group life insurance coverage, with the first $35,000 of coverage paid by the board and any additional coverage paid by the teacher.

Pension contributions

Annual pension contributions for teachers equal 10.8 per cent of pay up to $50,100 a year and then 12.4 per cent of any pay above $50,100. A teacher earning $75,000 in 2012 will contribute $8,498 to her pension plan, while a teacher earning $51,000 will contribute $5,522 to his pension.


Pension eligibility

Teachers are eligible to retire with a full pension at age 65 or when their years of work plus their age equals 85.


Pension payout

Teachers receive a pension based on their years of service and their best five years’ average salary. A teacher who retires with a full pension, worked for 32 years and earned a best-five-years average salary of $60,000 would have a basic pension of $38,400. A teacher earning $90,000 a year with 32 years of service would have an annual pension of $57,600. The pension amounts are reduced once teachers are old enough to begin collecting CPP payments because the teachers’ pension plan is designed to be integrated with CPP.

***

Student funding in Ontario is set, in broad terms at the provincial level, with province-wide contracts for teachers; and a funding formula that is the same province wide.

*however, that does not mean each school or board gets the same amount.

What happens is that each board receives a base per pupil amount, followed by top ups for certain extra-ordinary costs [[such as bussing in rural boards).

As well as extra money for high needs students.

That determination is made according to:

Occupational structure,

Median income

Parent level of education

Percent families below Statistic Canada's low-income cut-off

Percent unemployed

Percent Aboriginal families

Percent recent immigrants
Percent moved in previous year

Metropolitan influence zone

[Canadian Visitor]

Something I wonder about is the different level of spending in U.S. schools on sports.

I am under the impression that it can be quite high.

In Ontario, High School sports are purely extra curricular [[no credit), and there are no lavish stadiums, and coaches are entirely volunteer.

So it tends to represent a pretty modest cost [[capital facilities, sports field, gym, running track etc.) and maybe uniforms and some equipment necessary to w/e sport, I'm not sure how travel costs are handled.

***

I'm also curious about how much money goes to security in U.S. schools, as we don't typically have any security personnel in our schools, nor stuff like metal detectors.

[Király]

I think there's general agreement that there are challenges in educating less-wealthy students. Can you tell us a bit more about how that translates into increased costs? What are those supports?

In poor neighborhoods, there is additional funding and staffing for:

-breakfast and hot lunch programs
-inner city team [[includes counsellors, youth and family workers, paraeducators, social workers, intensive behavior specialists)
-intensive literacy support
-dental and medical services

Basically stuff that kids from wealthy families don't need because their families generally provide it to them. Poor kids who don't get this basics-of-life stuff from their families need it in school before they can even begin to learn anything there.

Does Canada spend more in poor neighbourhoods and less in wealthy? How large is the variance?

Canada doesn't spend anything—there are no national standards nor national funding for education. It's a provincial matter, and each province does it differently. Here in British Columbia, public schools are 100% funded from the province. The province gives each district roughly an equal amount of per-pupil funding, with additional cash for things like ESL, building seismic upgrades, etc. It is up to each district to allocate funds from what they are given for special services. Vancouver absolutely spends more money in the poor neighborhood schools than in the rich ones.

I was very surprised to learn that DPS per-pupil cost is only 15% above the national average. Given the very large majority of economically disadvantaged students I would have expected the per-pupil cost to be much, much higher.

[JBMcB]

Here are breakdowns and rankings for each school system, broken out by funding source, and destination of expenditure [[salaries, administrative costs, special education programs, basic programs, etc...)

http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7...1514--,00.html

Detroit is at around 80th place in total educational expenditure, 72nd place for salary expenditures. It's 189th and 138th in administrative costs and operational support costs.

They are pretty top heavy in administration, but expenditures on teaching and curriculum are correspondingly very high, relatively speaking.

[Wesley Mouch]

...I was very surprised to learn that DPS per-pupil cost is only 15% above the national average. Given the very large majority of economically disadvantaged students I would have expected the per-pupil cost to be much, much higher.

I share your surprise. A 15% premium for the 'big city' seems reasonable. Is that enough of a premium. If it is, then the problem isn't funding, but execution.