(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Watch your favorite bearded libertarian edu-nerd (okay maybe third favorite) debate how much Arizona really spends in public schools:
Jay P. Greene's Blog
With Help From Some Friends
(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Watch your favorite bearded libertarian edu-nerd (okay maybe third favorite) debate how much Arizona really spends in public schools:
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
So if the $6500 is just for operational expenses, where does all the money go? For a 25-kid classroom, that’s $162,500. If items like the facilities and insurance are already paid for out of the other funds not being counted, why isn’t $162,500 enough to pay the salaries for one teacher and one bureaucrat per classroom?
Stuart-
Actually I think the operational expenses are well above $6,500, nor do I believe that facility costs explain all of the difference. The latest available Digest of Education Statistics lists AZ as below the national average on facility cost per student.
If I had to guess, I’d say that some local overrides and deseg money is also not being counted.
School reform is bad Mkay.
Nevada does not county internal service funds (which covers part of the central office cost), federal funds, debt service funds, capital project funds, and even the food service fund when calculating the per pupil cost. I bet most states are like that.
At about 5:20 into the interview, Chuck tossed out an average national class size of 15. Where in the world did he obtain this figure? DOE stats (here: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_064.asp?referrer=report) show that nationally Elementary schools operate at 20.4 per classroom and Secondary schools at 24.7 students per classroom. I would suggest that the average class size figure a bit misleading in that class size for students here in Illinois at least, Regular programs, where 75-80% of students are educated, is probably on the order of 20% higher. The average is drawn down by much smaller Special Ed self-contained classrooms.
Reducing class size, as suggested by Chuck, is more than a matter of adding instructional staff. I work, volunteer actually, in a Northwest Suburban Chicago K-8 district that has 19 buildings and a student population of over 12,000 and is currently pretty close to capacity. Decreasing class size by an average of 4 students would necessitate capital outlays for 3-4 additional buildings and the ongoing operation costs for staff and all for the possibility of minimal or no real improvement in educational outcomes. As a point of reference, our “all in” funding stands at $11,300.