Where School Dollars Go To Waste

[summer]

www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/where-school-dollars-go-to-waste/384949/

America spends tons of money on education even though the final product isn't very impressive. If children are indeed the future, then they're certainly an expensive one: Of the $3.2 trillion in total expenditures for local and state governments in 2012, education accounted for nearly 28 percent, or $869.2 billion, according to the latest data from the Census Bureau. That figure topped government spending in any other sector, almost doubling the second-largest recipient of taxpayer dollars—public welfare.


Local and State Spending by Sector




But while much attention centers on how much schools are spending, it's also worth examining how well it’s being spent. And it's not a new question. A few years ago the New York Times, for example, hosted a debate in its opinion section about the worthiness of education spending.



Meanwhile, audits regularly find wasted funds at the district level, including one last summer that identified more than $2.7 million in misspent technology funding for schools in Fort Worth, Texas. Another audit—this one for Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Texas—resulted in over 200 recommendations for improvement. The revelations were so damning that the state auditor, Adam Edelen, was quoted blaming the problem on "an unchecked bureaucracy that has become bloated and inefficient at the expense of the classroom." It's undeniable that the burden on taxpayers to foot the bill for education is a heavy one, especially when research shows that the quality of a school district directly correlates with the amount of tax dollars families put into their local economies.



A piece last year in USA Today by Michelle Rhee, a Democrat who formerly served as the chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools, and Susan Combs, Texas' Republican public comptroller, reveals just how concerned public officials on both sides are about the misappropriation of government funds.



Of course, education spending isn’t inherently bad—what matters is the result. Some school districts get lots in return for the amount of money they spend. And some governments have systems that track the return on investment. Texas, for example, launched a tool five years ago that assesses how school districts and individual campuses spend their money and compares the data with student achievement.



Now, the online financial resource WalletHub has crunched the numbers on school spending at 90 of the most-populated cities across the country, revealing which ones are getting the most—and least—bang for their buck. To arrive at the findings, WalletHub divided each city’s aggregate test scores in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math by its total per-capita education spending. The researchers then adjusted those figures for various socioeconomic factors, such as the poverty rate and percentage of households that don't speak English as their first language.





Cities With the Most Efficient K-12 Spending


Regionally, trends suggest that the North East is home to some of the most wasteful school districts. Of the bottom 10 cities on the list, seven are located in that area:


Cities With the Least-Efficient K-12 Spending



For some cities the data is all but indicting: At the bottom of the list is Rochester, New York, a city that is No. 2 for K-12 spending but has the lowest test scores. Jill Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for WalletHub, had this to say about the regional analysis: "As far as the Northeast goes these cities are spending upwards of $2,500 per capita and their test scores really aren’t showing that. They may have more money to spend on students but they are not using it efficiently."

Mapping Efficient and Inefficient K-12 Spending
(see map in link)


California is also home to some of the most wasteful K-12 spenders, according to WalletHub—11 of the state's 16 most-populated cities are in the bottom 25. It's noteworthy that two of those cities also top the list of the percentage of households where English isn't spoken as a first language. While that factor isn't necessarily a reason for their inefficient spending, research shows that the language barrier can have a disastrous effect on learning outcomes. Gonzalez, however, pointed to other cities that strived despite their socioeconomic challenges. "Those able to integrate socioeconomically have a leg up," she said. "We see that in Raleigh [No. 22] and in Austin [No. 8] they were able to overcome any factors that in other cities might be holding them back."



The federal government has demonstrated in recent history that it's not happy about the wasted K-12 dollars. Former President George W. Bush's notorious No Child Left Behind act amounted to an attempt to put a stopper on unproductive spending by failing school districts. Implemented in the early 2000s, the No Child Left Behind legislation meant that schools now had to meet certain performance criteria or risk being taken over or shut down, among other sanctions. The idea was that further accountability would lead to higher achievement; however, its impact was debatable at best.



And it's hard to deduce possible solutions from the WalletHub data. The list hints at some correlations, but as Gonzalez noted it's largely up to the individual localities to reevaluate how they're using their money. "There is not a one-side-fits-all band-aid for any education system," she said. "If you know your district and your city and put it where it should go that will help make the system as a whole much more efficient.

[tres3]

i don't have the math skills to pick apart these but one thing that pops into my head is that in my county 85% of the school budget is spent on salaries and benefits. The average teacher makes less than $50k/yr. In the northeast the salaries are higher so of course they spend more per student.

Also there may be some inefficiencies in the northeast system vs the south. In the south we have a county system of schools, in the north school districts were by town/city. There are 5 towns in my county but we only have to hire 1 dir. of schools, 1 dir. of curriculum, etc. whereas if we were a town system there would be 5 of them.

[IIOY]

Hm. I was hoping for more details about *how* the tax dollars were being wasted.

Further, are test scores a good proxy for academic success? Is Grand Rapids really churning out the most academically capable students for the buck? I realize this is an entirely separate discussion and we have to work with the metrics we have.

[rugbywife]

I was going to say, apparently they go to waste on teaching writers how to link titles to topics because I found very little actual information about what the money was wasted on...regardless...

Now that I have experience with working with a school budget I have a slightly different perspective than I did when I was a teacher and didn't see the whole picture. I do think an area for potential 'waste' is that as new initiatives are started/taken on, money is sunk into them (which is important, nothing worse than a poorly funded initiative) but if you have too many new 'things' started, you can spend a lot of money on buying things,without those things actually getting used.

[tres3]

Also a lot of the towns on the "worst" lists are in areas of decline. The school populations are probably declining but the schools are still stuck with the massive infrastructure from when Buffalo and Rochester were booming.

[origami]

Jan 31, 2015 7:05:08 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Hm. I was hoping for more details about *how* the tax dollars were being wasted.

Further, are test scores a good proxy for academic success? Is Grand Rapids really churning out the most academically capable students for the buck? I realize this is an entirely separate discussion and we have to work with the metrics we have.

I would really like to see the guts of this data as well because the most efficient list contains what I would have said is one of the very best districts in MI and one of our very worst.

[nomad100]

Jan 31, 2015 7:05:08 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Hm. I was hoping for more details about *how* the tax dollars were being wasted.

Further, are test scores a good proxy for academic success? Is Grand Rapids really churning out the most academically capable students for the buck? I realize this is an entirely separate discussion and we have to work with the metrics we have.

As someone in GR, I wonder if this is for the entire area that is considered Grand Rapids (including some in the burbs which have some of the best schools in the state) or just GRPS.  

[tres3]

Jan 31, 2015 8:27:51 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

Jan 31, 2015 7:05:08 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Hm. I was hoping for more details about *how* the tax dollars were being wasted.

Further, are test scores a good proxy for academic success? Is Grand Rapids really churning out the most academically capable students for the buck? I realize this is an entirely separate discussion and we have to work with the metrics we have.

As someone in GR, I wonder if this is for the entire area that is considered Grand Rapids (including some in the burbs which have some of the best schools in the state) or just GRPS.  

How much of this is affluence? My county has one of the lowest per pupil spends in the state, but our demographics are unlike anything else in the state. Average household income over $100k when statewide average is closer to $40k. 

[ttt]

I'm very disappointed in this article. I have wondered how we could spend so much money on education and yet our schools are mediocre and teachers are forced to spend their own money on classroom supplies. I was looking forward to seeing where all that money goes but I guess this article is not it.

[nomad100]

Jan 31, 2015 8:50:47 GMT -5 tres3 said:

Jan 31, 2015 8:27:51 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

As someone in GR, I wonder if this is for the entire area that is considered Grand Rapids (including some in the burbs which have some of the best schools in the state) or just GRPS.  

How much of this is affluence? My county has one of the lowest per pupil spends in the state, but our demographics are unlike anything else in the state. Average household income over $100k when statewide average is closer to $40k. 

Well, GRPS has a grad rate of less than 50% and my district, also in GR has a grad rate of over 95%.  And GRPS has over 80% of kids qualifying for reduced or free lunches and my district has about 10%.  

[RoxMonster]

Jan 31, 2015 8:52:59 GMT -5 ttt said:

I'm very disappointed in this article. I have wondered how we could spend so much money on education and yet our schools are mediocre and teachers are forced to spend their own money on classroom supplies. I was looking forward to seeing where all that money goes but I guess this article is not it.

I agree. I do have some personal experience. One of the most affluent districts near me had to lay off 18 teachers last year because they put too much money into building a new state-of-the-art football stadium and couldn't afford to keep all the teachers on staff. It was a huge uproar around here (as it should be).

Similarly, the district where I teach has undergone budget cuts and may have to lay off some teachers starting next year. Our school board wants us to buy laptops for every student instead of keeping more teachers on staff. We're still fighting this with them.

So I can definitely see examples of districts spending funds where I don't think they should be. I just don't agree that a piece of technology will ever have more importance than a classroom teacher, especially if that means class sizes will become large. Sorry if this became a bit of a tangent, but distributing school funds is a hot issue in our district right now and has me riled up lol. And unfortunately, I bet many districts have similar problems.

[UMaineTeach]

Jan 31, 2015 7:17:41 GMT -5 rugbywife said:

I was going to say, apparently they go to waste on teaching writers how to link titles to topics because I found very little actual information about what the money was wasted on...regardless...

Now that I have experience with working with a school budget I have a slightly different perspective than I did when I was a teacher and didn't see the whole picture. I do think an area for potential 'waste' is that as new initiatives are started/taken on, money is sunk into them (which is important, nothing worse than a poorly funded initiative) but if you have too many new 'things' started, you can spend a lot of money on buying things,without those things actually getting used.

I know this is a (the) problem in my district. We have very low test scores. (and a low income, highly transient population with parents who need as much help with issues as the kids, but No Child Left Behind).

Because we have low test scores we chase the tail of any new thinking, and new method, any new product, any new consultant, any new author that blows through town. We latch on, sink all our money in, try it for a year and a half and when the scores don't magically rise over night we sink money into to the next guy in a flashy suit. We have tens of thousands of dollars in abandoned programs sitting in sheds and on high dusty shelves.

[ttt]

Jan 31, 2015 10:51:59 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Jan 31, 2015 8:52:59 GMT -5 ttt said:

I'm very disappointed in this article. I have wondered how we could spend so much money on education and yet our schools are mediocre and teachers are forced to spend their own money on classroom supplies. I was looking forward to seeing where all that money goes but I guess this article is not it.

From my experience, working at one of the worst school districts in the country, money was wasted on:
1. Six figure department consultants who didn't really help the school.

2. Embezzlement, it ran rampant in Compton Unified. Millions gone each year this way. 

3. Materials that were purchased for the school, but never delivered ( tons of curriculum materials stored in modulars on campus. Reordered each year to spend grant money, but never sent to teachers). The rental fee for modulars is pretty steep too. I think it was $30k a month or $30k a year for one faux classroom. 

4. Earmarks  for Special Education lawsuit settlements. The programs were too fucked up to fight parent lawsuits, so it was much easier to settle, rather than lose in a drawn out process. 

5. Unnecessary supplies that just don't make sense. Why did all our classes get $15k promethean boards, but teachers had to buy paper out if pocket, and there are no pencils?

6. Assessment materials. All those pretests, posters, benchmarks, summative assessments, formative assessments, informal diagnostics - it's expensive to pay trainers, pay staff for attending training, pay the people developing the tests, pay who every is grading the test, pay for the testing software, pay for the licensing agreement that allows the teachers and students to interpret and reflect on results ( guess what? You failed!), and buy a new system to start the process all over again, every 2-3 years, because education trends shift. 

Other than salaries, it's sad how so much of school funding gets lost before it hits the classroom. When it does hit the classroom, it's usually  in the form of a testing component. 

Is there anything that regular people can do about this?? 

[tacosforlife]

Thanks to @kirkette for providing more actual information than this article. LOL!

[sushi]

Miami and ft laud are some of the most efficient? Is that because they spend so little? Those 2 cities aren't known for good education. Additionally, they've had over a decade of Jeb bush's charter love affair.

My understanding is that Florida already spends some of the least on average and that public charters forget decrease the average in traditional public schools.

[NewOrleans]

Superfluous administration

Technology rendered useless (primarily by faculty untrained to use it so it sits around)

Materials purchased and not sent

bullshit "experts"

Using courier services to send shit to board of Ed members

SPED documentation or other issues ( such as a high profile student who is doing well academically but parent is fierce so they send TA's around to document every move kid makes or assign a child whose IEP doesn't call for a TA one anyway just to not escalate with an upset parent)

Other stupid shit (families say they live outside of paid bussing boundary and can ride free, sending staff to walk the distance with a pedometer to check)

Trying to nail teachers for stupid shit (hiring PI's to see if they have affairs and such), or what is happening with tres3's district that has to hire additional staff to handle absurd FOIA stuff)

testing

testing

testing

construction and then reconstruction

cosmetic construction

eta: oops, I see Kirkette beat me to most of this

[josieposy]

We have an investigation going on here about misuse of district credit cards. Nearly half of the expenditures investigated were submitted without receipts. Nobody was really keeping an eye on it, and now they are going after the employees for reimbursement on the expenses that should have never been approved in the first place.

[josieposy]

Jan 31, 2015 11:51:41 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Jan 31, 2015 11:44:27 GMT -5 josieposy said:

We have an investigation going on here about misuse of district credit cards. Nearly half of the expenditures investigated were submitted without receipts. Nobody was really keeping an eye on it, and now they are going after the employees for reimbursement on the expenses that should have never been approved in the first place.

One neighboring inner city district lost $80 million dollars in less than a semester. Gone! No receipts, no improved outcomes for students. Just sad faces, question marks, and begging to the state for more money because they couldn't pay their upcoming liabilities. 

Get this, the state responded by giving them more consultants,  and millions more money.   

WTF California? 

Woah.

[NewOrleans]

Jan 31, 2015 12:00:13 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

You know what really grates my nerves? Some policy making asshole, or shady superintendent is going to use this article as proof that classroom teachers need to work harder to do more with less. Fuck do more with less! That's not a real solution. What's the innovative solution to not having pencils or reliable internet? I guess it's having students bubble in poorly designed practice tests in blood, vomit, and tears.

[NitaX]

I would hedge my bets to also say that poor district purchasing processes are at play as well.

One of the things I heard by local administration is that when systems allow schools to purchase items themselves than through a centralized process, you have schools with technology that the district can't support or you lose buying power. Our district has saved a ton of money (can't think of the exact amount) through the use of centralized purchasing.

Also, our district had an audit that highlighted some flaws in the way we were accounting for some items. One of the former districts (two systems are now merged - but not really, LOL) was accounting for fuel purchases manually which led to a huge clusterfuck in showing what was actually spent. So, the district now uses an electronic method to account for those purchases.

School finances are a beast. There are so many funds and requirements around how you report funds, what can be used where, etc. that I'm not surprised one bit by this article. You REALLY need to have a finance team that has school funding experience to run it. It's leaps and bounds different than municipal level budgeting.

[IIOY]

Jan 31, 2015 10:51:59 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Jan 31, 2015 8:52:59 GMT -5 ttt said:

I'm very disappointed in this article. I have wondered how we could spend so much money on education and yet our schools are mediocre and teachers are forced to spend their own money on classroom supplies. I was looking forward to seeing where all that money goes but I guess this article is not it.

From my experience, working at one of the worst school districts in the country, money was wasted on:
1. Six figure department consultants who didn't really help the school.

I realize I'm going to piss someone off with this, but IME consultants are one of the biggest scams ever.  These people breeze in with all their fancy ideas that are impractical or irrelevant, have zero accountability, and get paid a small fortune for it.  

Anecdote: a few years ago, our SD hired consultants to rework bus schedules to make them more efficient because, among other things, private school students meant we had buses criss-crossing townships and running crazy routes.  These assholes were paid one million dollars to give us a new route/schedule that wound up leaving Kindergartners catching the bus before 6am and sitting on the bus for 90 minutes in both directions.  None of the bus drivers - the folks who actually know the roads and traffic patterns - were consulted by the consultants about the new routes.  There was a massive uproar, as you can imagine, and the entire thing was scrapped.

Guess who still got paid their $1M?

[NitaX]

Jan 31, 2015 12:14:18 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Jan 31, 2015 10:51:59 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

From my experience, working at one of the worst school districts in the country, money was wasted on:
1. Six figure department consultants who didn't really help the school.

I realize I'm going to piss someone off with this, but IME consultants are one of the biggest scams ever.  These people breeze in with all their fancy ideas that are impractical or irrelevant, have zero accountability, and get paid a small fortune for it.  

Anecdote: a few years ago, our SD hired consultants to rework bus schedules to make them more efficient because, among other things, private school students meant we had buses criss-crossing townships and running crazy routes.  These assholes were paid one million dollars to give us a new route/schedule that wound up leaving Kindergartners catching the bus before 6am and sitting on the bus for 90 minutes in both directions.  None of the bus drivers - the folks who actually know the roads and traffic patterns - were consulted by the consultants about the new routes.  There was a massive uproar, as you can imagine, and the entire thing was scrapped.

Guess who still got paid their $1M?

Chile. Those consultants from Philly were down here fucking up shit. Best thing our Board ever did was say - umm we'll review and implement the ones we think will work for our district. 

[NewOrleans]

FUCKING GOOD FOR YOU, @kirkette!! Fly free, little bird!

[tacosforlife]

Jan 31, 2015 13:26:19 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Jan 31, 2015 13:16:22 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

FUCKING GOOD FOR YOU, @kirkette!! Fly free, little bird!

Now that I am on the other side, I feel like I'm leading an Underground Railroad of teachers to anyone with a credential who will listen, "Get the hell out now, the climate is only going to get worse before it gets better, you have marketable skills , don't believe the self doubt".

You mean those who teach can also DO?! Color me shocked!

[NewOrleans]

Jan 31, 2015 13:26:19 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Jan 31, 2015 13:16:22 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

FUCKING GOOD FOR YOU, @kirkette!! Fly free, little bird!

Now that I am on the other side, I feel like I'm leading an Underground Railroad of teachers to anyone with a credential who will listen, "Get the hell out now, the climate is only going to get worse before it gets better, you have marketable skills , don't believe the self doubt".

I freaking love this.  

[chw57]

Jan 31, 2015 13:26:19 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Jan 31, 2015 13:16:22 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

FUCKING GOOD FOR YOU, @kirkette!! Fly free, little bird!

Now that I am on the other side, I feel like I'm leading an Underground Railroad of teachers to anyone with a credential who will listen, "Get the hell out now, the climate is only going to get worse before it gets better, you have marketable skills , don't believe the self doubt".

I just can't leave. I truly believe my district is doing the right things and I can't imagine being anywhere but in the classroom right now. It is also only my fifth year so I'm not totally burnt out, and I moved from a horrible district to a pretty good one so I consider myself extremely lucky.

I agree with the consultant bullshit. My district started having teachers lead PD this year and it has been so awesome. Last year they paid way too much for some bullshit RTI guy who was useless so I'm glad they might be seeing the light.

[IIOY]

BTW, I keep reading this thread title as "Where School Dollars Go To Die."