The Christian Science Monitor published a provocative opinion piece on school spending by Walt Gardner, former Los Angeles public school teacher and lecturer at the UCLA Graduate School of Education, who now writes the Reality Check blog for Education Week. In it Gardner argues that many school districts have squandered resources, including federal stimulus money, and spent profligately during the boom years on projects like LA's $578 million Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex.
Gardner sticks mainly to what he knows, which is LA, but you can find lots more questionable spending, including a rapid increase in personnel and administrative costs in some places and big increases in pay and benefits which drained some budgets.
In New Jersey, as I've written, public school enrollment stagnated this decade along with the state's overall population, but school districts still increased their hiring by 14 percent from 2001 through 2008.
Gardner sticks mainly to what he knows, which is LA, but you can find lots more questionable spending, including a rapid increase in personnel and administrative costs in some places and big increases in pay and benefits which drained some budgets.
In New Jersey, as I've written, public school enrollment stagnated this decade along with the state's overall population, but school districts still increased their hiring by 14 percent from 2001 through 2008.
During that time the NJ public school enrollment increased by just
36,000 students, but schools hired 28,000 new teachers and
administrators. Those gains helped drive big increases in compensation,
including 110 percent higher health care costs in NJ schools. No wonder
that Gov. Christie's cuts in state education aid last year provoked such
pain.
E.J. McMahon has documented similar robust hiring in New York State schools despite stagnant enrollment. NJ and NY, by the way, spend more per pupil on public education than any other state, and they boast the highest property taxes in the nation, too.
Then there's the case of the Detroit school system, which has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in the past two years. Although the school system's enrollment has plunged by about half in a decade, the system continued operating a full complement of schools and staff, wracking up a $259 million deficit before a state-appointed overseer finally began closing schools and consolidating operations.
Other examples abound. Many states devote lottery proceeds to education, and legislators have in the past promised that the money would go to books, other classroom supplies and essentials. But in California over the years, lottery proceeds have gone mostly to teachers' salaries. Despite warnings from the state's department of education, nearly 80 percent of lottery proceeds earmarked for local school districts have wound up in teachers' pockets. In the lottery's early years, when revenues were at the peak, schools spent as much as 90 percent of proceeds on salaries, one reason why California's teachers are among the highest paid in the country even though overall per pupil school spending in the state is just slightly above average.
Gardner suggests it's time for taxpayers to pay more attention to how schools spend their money. They certainly did that in Jersey last year, where nearly 60 percent of school budgets went down in defeat. Will that attitude spread?
E.J. McMahon has documented similar robust hiring in New York State schools despite stagnant enrollment. NJ and NY, by the way, spend more per pupil on public education than any other state, and they boast the highest property taxes in the nation, too.
Then there's the case of the Detroit school system, which has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in the past two years. Although the school system's enrollment has plunged by about half in a decade, the system continued operating a full complement of schools and staff, wracking up a $259 million deficit before a state-appointed overseer finally began closing schools and consolidating operations.
Other examples abound. Many states devote lottery proceeds to education, and legislators have in the past promised that the money would go to books, other classroom supplies and essentials. But in California over the years, lottery proceeds have gone mostly to teachers' salaries. Despite warnings from the state's department of education, nearly 80 percent of lottery proceeds earmarked for local school districts have wound up in teachers' pockets. In the lottery's early years, when revenues were at the peak, schools spent as much as 90 percent of proceeds on salaries, one reason why California's teachers are among the highest paid in the country even though overall per pupil school spending in the state is just slightly above average.
Gardner suggests it's time for taxpayers to pay more attention to how schools spend their money. They certainly did that in Jersey last year, where nearly 60 percent of school budgets went down in defeat. Will that attitude spread?
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