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As was reported in the press yesterday, my esteemed colleague Warren Geurin lamented on Tuesday night that the Tango controversy has distracted attention from the current budget process. He mentioned my blog in particular, as a few folks think that I've been fueling that "distraction." Certainly there has been significant press coverage of Tango, I'm sure in large part because people like to read about controversy and reporters in particular tend to be interested in censorship issues, as they base their careers on freedom of speech. I happen to also think that it was (and remains) a critical issue.
For the benefit of those who think I haven't contributed enough to the budget discussion, I have created a review below of the many budget posts that I have written in the past four months. At least one Supervisor read my most recent budget post but commented to me that s/he would need more than that one to be convinced. Well citizens, feast upon the following and then use the links at right to write to your representatives on the Board of Supervisors and tell them what you think of plans to cut the LCPS budget even more deeply than the previous Board did.
Click here for the printable version.
February 25: “The leanest central office I’ve ever seen.”
Critics of the recently submitted school budget feel that too much money is spent on administrative salaries, which, in turn, causes rising Loudoun taxes.
Leibowitz said, "This administrative structure is bare-boned. It's the leanest central office I've ever seen.
February 16: Administrative Costs & Textbooks
“93.1 percent of LCPS' employees are school-based, the highest percentage of school-based personnel among districts in the metropolitan area, according to the D.C. Washington Area Boards of Education Guide” You'll also see in the numbers that about 3% of our budget goes to Administration, while 79.8% goes to Instruction.
February 7, 2008: Teacher Salaries (concisely)
Our teacher salaries are set based on that free market, not as a moral judgment of how much someone deserves to be paid. When I consider the challenge and importance of the work that teachers do and the impact it has on the future of our world, I think they should be paid much more (same for law enforcement, firefighters, military and other public safety personnel), but no society has ever though it could afford to pay public employees according to the importance and risk associated with their jobs.
February 2, 2008: Four Good Questions
Realizing economy of scale is important and at LCPS, the number of administrators has steadily declined over the years in comparison to the number of students. While the student population has grown 141% in the past ten years, the number of administrators has grown only 90%. Of the ten DC-area public school districts, only the City of Manassas has a higher percentage of school-based personnel.
January 29, 2008: Self-Sufficiency Standard
"Everyone who works a full-time job should be paid enough to meet basic needs without help from family, friends or the government.”
January 13, 2008: Anatomy of a decision
In an $800 million dollar budget, there’s only so many $20K items you can have time to go over with a fine toothed comb. This is the nature of a large institution and you can’t pin that on LCPS. It’s the same at every large corporation and government organization I’ve ever worked at, with the US Military topping the list.
January 13, 2008: Budget Amendments Complete
While we cut back new school office staff, new technology and raises for our substitute teachers we added full-day kindergarten at four schools, gave a tech boost to our poorest schools, rolled back a school lunch price increase and started thinking in a new way about how we determine the appropriate starting pay for our custodians.
January 7, 2008: Budget Amendments Underway
We approved without amendment the following relatively small areas of the budget:
- School Board
- Superindentent's Office
- Deputy Superindentent's Office
- Public Information Office
- Planning & Legislative Services
All of this constitutes less than 1 percent of the budget. The total, by my calculations, is $5,889,881. It is an increase of 1.46% over the FY08 Appropriation. All of these offices combined have a total of 26.8 FTEs, and no new employees were added this year.
January 3, 2008: FY09 Growth and Funding
A reasonable person would then ask "Why does LCPS have an increase so much higher than the rate of inflation?" Here's why.
January 2, 2008: Budget Tools and Indicators
Cost per pupil: This is the big metric that everybody looks to, as if all the answers were in this one number. In FY08 our cost is $12,751 per student. This is 6th out of the 10 metro DC jurisdictions. Prince William, Prince George and Manassas spend less.
December 16, 2007: Weekend Education News
Since the School Board hasn't even yet voted on the budget, it is premature to suggest that we're bickering with the Supervisors over it. We all understand that this is going to be a tough year, and we're all going to do our best to work out the best possible budget for the kids and the county.
December 13, 2007: AP Fees & Budget Cuts
In the midst of the difficult choices that both Boards will need to make about tax rates, class sizes and what creates educational excellence, some School Board members are eyeing the AP fee payments, particularly for the many students from affluent families, as a potential target for savings. What do you think?
December 6, 2008: Budget Immersion
It is, officially, the "Superintendent's proposed budget," and before it gets to us it has been through his own vetting process. What it really reflects though is the work of at least a couple of hundred people, from principals and other school-level staff to supervisors and directors with the help of specialists and secretaries and up to the senior staff. To a person each member of the staff demonstrate a very clear command of their area of responsibility. I'm sure that they've had to justify each line item at multiple levels before they get to us, we're just the last so maybe they've warmed up by then.
November 30, 2007: Capital Improvement Plan
Did you notice that there was just one school bond on this year's ballot? That will be the last time that happens for quite a while. We need more schools, folks. We're packed to the gills. Most schools in growing areas are over capacity and the problem just gets worse in the coming years.
Only one speaker came to the public hearing held on the CIP on Tuesday, eighth-grader Katie Stevenson, who pressed us to build a Humanities Academy.
October 11, 2007: Cost Per Pupil
In the past 10 years, overall spending has increased by 92%, an average of 6.8% per year. In the most recent budget our cost per pupil increased only 1.56%.
4 Comments:
The penguin discussion is important because it signal where the administration and board's sympathies lie in the culture wars. If one is deeply affiliated with one side or the other this is important in the level of support for the public schools.
It is a tricky balance to constantly test the political winds and tack accordingly. The surge in new residents has changed the composition of the electorate and Loudoun has a history of swinging back and forth between extremes as they throw out the radicals of one party only to get their mirror opposites.
Parent worry about their children will be cannon fodder as the curriculum shifts to satisfy political constituents. That's why I keep harping on democratizing curricular choices by using technology to empower parents.
Parents don't understand the budget. The timing is bad (holiday schedules) and poor communication makes it difficult to make meaningful comment.
Reforming how the budget is presented would change that.
I suggest personalizing the budget for each student. Cost each curricular activity like a inventory item in a store. Then prepare an itemized list of what it costs specifically for a student by course and activity. Each student will have a different "bill" because teacher costs depend on seniority and some classes have more students than others. Some students take lots of expensive courses and others less.
All students get allocated a G&A cost and a separate facilities cost because some infrastructure is more expensive than others. Some administrative items like discipline (detention) should be charged directly back to the student. Same with after-school activities, sports, field trips, SOL refreshers, etc.
The objective is to present the budget in a context that can be understood because it is relevant to a family.
(All the student data is in your systems so the additional work is in costing out each curricular item and joining it up with the student schedules.)
Averages of these costs by area and student demographics will highlight which student profiles are costly to educate and allow us to focus in on how to equalize the cost. When schools focus solely on NCLB performance we can lose track of how resources are allocated and allow inequities to creep into the system.
After a few years of refinement in the process I suggest giving each family a target budget for their children and ask them to shop for the best education from an ala carte menu. Then the tough budget decisions on whether to fund initiative A or B will be made by parental choice. I'd make choices like having my children take math courses online instead of with a teacher because I'm really good at and interested in tutoring them in math.)
Parents would be given a low budget number and a high one and asked to prioritize which of their curricular items are the first to cut if all the funding doesn't come through. The more popular optional items would get funded first instead of the ones that just have vocal sponsors.
Children should be fined for absentees and tardies and that would give them less money for sports, field trips and after- school activities. I'd expect this would incentivize some.
The whole process would get children and families familar with personal budgeting, a critical life skill.
(Of course this all has to be done online so parents do the data entry and computers do all the aggregating of preferences.)
I think that was an unfair criticism. I think you have done a good job of balancing the two most pressing issues facing the county.
If School Board Policy 5~7 had been followed, the Tango question would have been settled in June of 2007 (or earlier) and would not be a distraction now. Just saying . . .
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