Johnston County School Budget Guess Johnston County's School Board is taking lessons from the Wake County School Board.
This article does not give a much needed number. How much money is spent per student? More students in the area should mean a bigger budget. That's common sense.
Yeah because the more you spend per student the better the education. That is why we spends record amounts and get less education. Maybe we should go back to one room schools.
I think you missed the point. My point is that just because there is an increase in the budget doesn't mean there is a good reason for it. As the article indicated..."School officials contend the increases are justified to keep up with increased enrollment, the opening of new schools, and higher costs, such as fuel for buses." More students requires more money. Per student spending is a way to compare yearly spending. The budget can increase but the per student spending can remain constant. And as far as one room schools, give me a teacher that utilized research-based curriculum, data-driven instruction, and 100+ hours of quality professional development every three years, and my kid will go there.
Oh I understand completely. We continue to increase the money spent per pupil with diminishing returns. We spend more now than we ever have. We lag behind the majority of the country and the world. The Education bureaucracy does not want to admit it, but it is true. Old but worth a look $6700 per pupil in NC in 2004 Only 61.2% of students passes both reading and math end of grade tests in NC for 2005-2006. Yeah we are getting a real good return on our money. When are we going to wake up and realize money and schools do not equate to a good education.
You have tied the increase in budget to an increase in the spending per student, which is an unsupported assumption. As was noted, and seemingly misnderstood, if you increase the number of students without increasing the money spent per student the budget would be expected to increase. If the number of students increase above a threshhold level new ifrastructure would have to be added which would possibly appear to increase the cost per student until the capacity of that infrastucture was met.
A member of the school board is the one crying foul. I just made the statement that we do not get what we pay for.
So what can be done to make sure we do get what we are paying for? What has been brought up in the board meetings? What are the involved parties saying at the schools? What does the research say? How open is the public to said research?
The member of the School Board is talking about the total budget being high, not the expendature per student though. There is a significant difference between the two as the total budget includes capital expenditures as well as the normal costs of education. It is like saying we spent so much at the grocery store and someone else talking about not getting much value for the money on fresh vegatables because of that complaint. The reason for the spending amount being so high may only be partially related to the purchase of vegetables at best.
If you spend $1000.00 per student and last year you had 1000 students you would an operational budget of 1 million, but if you added 250 students without increasing the spending per student you would increase you budget by 25%. If you spend 25% of your budget on transportation and fule costs continue to rise you will have an increase in spending unrelated to anything which can be controlled by the School Board. If both instances happen in the same year you very well may have sticker shock, espceially if those extra students trigger the need for more facilities in the capital expense areas.
