Budgets and Baloney or Put Your Money Where your Mouth Is

During the last few years New York schools have had to create budgets under the constraints of a tax levy limitation law. For most districts this has translated to a budget increase of about 2%.

If you consider the rising costs of insurance, fuel, and transportation, districts have had to make troubling cuts to program to keep their budgets in line.

A new report funded by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now being published identifying 10 key ways that schools can save money. The main report is titled "Spending Money Wisely: Getting the Most From School District Budgets" and is published by the District Management Council.

I was very interested in this report. I spend a great deal of time examining each line of our budget trying to save a buck without hurting our programs. I do this with a scalpel not a machete, but sometimes cuts have to be made.

Here is their advice:
1. Calculate Academic Return on Investment: A Powerful Tool and a Great Investment
Calculating the academic return on investment (A-ROI) provides the answers to critical questions such as: How much does that initiative cost? How much learning is being achieved? Is there a more cost-effective alternative for achieving the same or better results?

There is actually a formula for this:

increase in student learning X number of students helped
________________________________________________________
money spent
2. Managing student-enrollment projections to meet class-size targets

3. Evaluating and adjusting remediation and intervention staffing levels

4. Adopting politically acceptable ways to increase class size or teachers' workload

5. Spending federal entitlement grants to leverage their flexibility

6. Adopting more-efficient and higher-quality reading programs

7. Improving the cost-effectiveness of professional development

8. Rethinking how items are purchased

9. Lowering the cost of extended learning time

10. Targeting new investments by eliminating inefficient and unsuccessful strategies

Anyone involved in their district's budget process would be insulted by these recommendations. Take #6 for example. Do they think reading directors purposely select inefficient reading programs? I must include an aside here: Many of the reading programs and supplies being used in classrooms today are published by Pearson, a giant corporation that has been very involved in the reading reform movement. What is a high quality reading program? Identify one for me.

Let's take #4. Politically acceptable ways of increasing class size. We know that a first grade class size should not exceed 20. Very few districts can afford that practice, EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW IT IS EFFECTIVE.

This report is baloney. I understand fiscal responsibility and the sacred trust financial managers have when using taxpayer funds. Good education is expensive. So is poverty. Education is an investment just like a 403B or a portfolio fund. Acknowledge this fact. Then put your money where your mouth is...

For additional information on this topic please consult the "Doing More With Less" article in Education Week at the following link:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/05/07/30savings.h33.html