From: elg@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 15 Nov 92 09:38:31 CDT
Newsgroups: sci.chem,sci.math,sci.physics,sci.bio,misc.education
Subject: Re: EDUCATION, MONEY, AND THE FACTS OF LIFE
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <1992Nov13.181241.9406@athena.mit.edu>, by solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky):
> In article <1992Nov1.180441.3129@midway.uchicago.edu>, jss5@ellis.uchicago.edu (jeffrey s sweeney) writes:
> The school boards very rarely are responsible for buying the buildings. That

In every school district I've ever been in, the school board was
responsible for buying or building the school buildings. For example, here
in HISD the district just built 12 new schools, using bond money that has a
sales tax dedicated to paying it off.

> leaves the following expenses, building maintenance (electricity, repairs,
> cleaning), administration and school supplies. This is far less than your

Note that electricity and repairs is often very expensive for older school
systems that have antiquated school buildings and no money to replace them.
12-foot ceilings are great when there's no air conditioning, but a horror
to heat (and to cool, when there IS air conditioning), while unsealed
windows let mighty drafts blow through. Not to mention that antiquated
boiler systems are much less efficient than today's modern forced-air heat.

> typical service business. School supplies should not be running more than $200
> per child.

Don't forget textbooks and teacher editions. Current textbooks average
about $40 apiece. Each child typically has 6 to 8 textbooks, for a total of
around $240 or so. Divide that by the 4 years that the typical textbook
lasts, and you have $80/child just for textbooks.

Re: school supplies: $200 per child? How about $500 per CLASSROOM? That's
it. That's all, folks. Hmph.

> Administration should apply a multiplier of 1.1 (1 administrator for
> every ten teachers), and building maintenance REALLY should not be costing more
> than $300 dollars per child.

You are also ignoring Special Education, Chapter One, and School Lunch, all
of which are federally-mandated programs with federally-mandated paperwork
and supervision requirements. Each and every application for a free school
lunch, for example, must be individually evaluated by a school
certification officer, who must get documentary evidence from each family
that they are eligible for the service. For special education, there is
generally one supervisor for every 6 to 8 teachers -- simply because of the
amount of Federal paperwork required, not to mention that most states
require this. Add in the diagnosticians required by federal law -- about
one for every twenty teacher. Add in the social workers required by
federal law -- ditto. And most special education teachers have very small
class sizes, and often have an aide to assist them. Figure an average class
size of 8 students per adult. Then remember that 16% of HISD students
recieve special education services, while another huge percentage recieve
Chapter One services....

Then add in the salaries of the cafeteria staff, the salaries of the bus
drivers, the cost of the busses, the data processing equipment and staff
needed to run a large business of any sort, ....

It seems to me that you have a very simplistic idea of what modern public
schools are required to do by state and federal law. For example, federal
law REQUIRES that Special Education provide a bus system to transport each
and every child to the school that his program is located at -- even if the
school is 20 miles away from the child's home. The school system has no
choice in the matter. Except to open up a classroom closer to the child's
home, which opens up other expenses if you're talking about rare
disabilities such as autism (HISD has close to 100 autistic students, about
what you'd expect for a school district with 150,000 students, and each of
them requires very specialized education -- required by federal law).

We are left with a DPE multiplier of approximatelly
> 1.4. I would suggest that the difference between actual spending and this figure
> is entirely waste. Particular in spending on administration and also in other
> areas.

Well, get to work. Repeal the Education for All Handicapped Act, for
example. Except -- do you REALLY want to do this? Do you really want to
eliminate the programs for the handicapped with their bussing and teaching
expenses? Do you really want to eliminate the programs for the gifted, with
their bussing and teaching expenses? What about specialized magnet programs
such as the Montessori schools or the High School for the Medical Sciences?
Again, it seems to me that you have a very simplistic notion of what the
schools should be providing... especially considering that it costs over
$16,000 per student to meet the needs of the most severely handicapped
students, and that's not waste. That's the natural consequence of having a
1:3 pupil/adult ratio and special toileting, equipment, and access needs.
That's the natural consequence of a federal law that says these students
must be educated rather than warehoused in institutions like they used to
be.

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.taronga.com   Dodson Elementary
 (713) 664-6446                             Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"
Newsgroups: sci.chem