Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Virginia Cuts K-12 Spending, Scores Improve Anyway

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Throwing money at K-12 education is not the same as "investing" in K-12 education.
Throwing money at K-12 education is not the same as “investing” in K-12 education.

Sara Okos at the Commonwealth Institute is upset by Virginia’s tight-fisted approach to education spending. Virginia has cut per-pupil “investment” in K-12 schools by more than 11% since 2008. That’s a deeper cut than experienced by all but 10 other states, she blogs, drawing upon a recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Writes Okos:

Reducing investment in schools also has long-term economic consequences.  A strong education system is essential to creating and maintaining a thriving economy. Businesses need a well-educated workforce, and education cuts undermine the state’s ability to produce workers with the skills needed to get ahead.

At a time when the commonwealth is trying to produce graduates that are “college or career ready,” Virginia should be investing more — not less — to ensure our kids get a “world-class education.”

That’s the conventional wisdom. Cutting spending harms educational achievement while increasing spending improves educational achievement. Let’s see how badly Virginia has shot itself in the foot.

In the table below, I draw data from the Virginia state profile published by the National Center for Education Statistics.  I compare National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for Virginia and the nation between 2007, before Virginia’s budget cuts took place, and 2011, the most recent figures available.

naep_scores

Lo and behold, despite the budget cuts, Virginia educational performance showed very little change for 4th- and 8th-grade math and reading, but improved measurably for 8th-grade science. (Figures for 4th-grade science were not available.) The Old Dominion gained 5 points across all categories.

I compared Virginia’s gains to national scores. Nationally, 8th-grade reading scores improved more than in Virginia, but science scores lost ground. All in all, the national scores gained 5 points as well.

Bacon’s Bottom line: Virginia cut educational spending more than the national average, but NAEP scores improved anyway — in line with the national average. We spend plenty of money on education in Virginia. What drives performance isn’t how much we spend as much as it’s how we spend it. (If that principle sounds familiar, you might have read the blog post about Bill Howell’s speech on transportation spending.)

Note to Sara: You can call educational spending an “investment,” but it doesn’t qualify as an “investment” unless you measure outcomes and conduct a Return on Investment analysis to determine if your expenditure yielded results. That analysis guides future investment. Without that discipline, it’s just “throwing money at the problem.”

— JAB

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

13 responses to “Virginia Cuts K-12 Spending, Scores Improve Anyway”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    note to Sara: thank you!

    note to Jim: now tell me how the charter/choice/private/home schools did
    on these metrics…

  2. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    of course, ANOTHER way that Va could save money would be to adopt the Common Core standards as we are but one of 4 or 5 states who has decided to maintain different standards.

    http://www.corestandards.org/in-the-states

    there is a ‘history’ between Common Core, SOLS and NCLB.

    then there is the focus:

    Common Core has a focus similar to NAEP:

    Reading

    Writing

    Speaking and Listening

    Language

    Media and Technology

    SOLs focus on:

    mathematics
    science
    English
    history
    social sciences

  3. HillCityJim Avatar
    HillCityJim

    A little funny math here. Well, really a lot!

    Per pupil funding, used to be based upon K-12 expenditures.
    When Pre-K came along, half day, funding was based upon $6,000 per kid shared state/local funding for those divisions that choose to participate. But these kids and expenditures were not part of the Superintendent’s Annual Report, per pupil expenditures. So what is shown in the previous 3 reports, per pupil statewide average expenditures for Operations, is:
    FY2010 $11,020
    FY2011 $10,793
    FY2012 $10,969
    But FY2012 NOW ADDS THE 14TH GRADE, PRE-K, TO THE MIX, AND WITH THOSE EXPENDITURES BEING IN THE $6,000 RANGE, IT LOWERS THE AVERAGE PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES THUS MAKING ANY STATISITCAL COMPARISONS INVALID!

    Now keep your eye on the little ball and tell me under which shell it resides to win a prize.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Lies, damn lies, and statistics!

    2. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      Good Catch! okay… so let’s subtract out the 1/2 stuff and what do we get?

      and don’t get me wrong – I think we spend TOO MUCH but it’s not at the state level – it’s at the local level where most schools systems but especially the wealthier ones CHOOSE to spend way, way more than what the state requires in match – AND they do not spend it on K-3 or pre-K or K but on things not-SOL required nor tested.

      The state basically funds the SOQs – which many localities say is not sufficient to truly paid for the real staffing needed – but the wealthier ones go further… and the increased funding has little to do with SOLs and SOQs.

      here’s some relevant data on a per county basis:

      State SOQ Spending, By
      Division, Account, Per
      Student, and Composite Index

  4. HillCityJim Avatar
    HillCityJim

    I finally agree with larryg on something (that we spend too much but not at the state level).
    SOQ funding is somewhat distorted because of the cost of competing for NOVA plus the transportation component of the formulas where the rural, small student population division get and spend more per student than compact city divisions.
    Now as far as your comment that schools are not funded sufficiently I ask is there any governmental agency that is sufficiently funded according to those that feed at the trough?

  5. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    we may agree even more than you think though I suspect you may find my “style” a little off-putting like Reed does.

    One more interesting thing is that if you look at the total of State and Local SOQ funding – it’s much, much closer to what the OECD countries spend per pupil.

    the second interesting thing is – if you go to a private/charter/choice school, they’re not going to have all these amenities and they are going to have less competition from amenities in devoting more resources to core academics.

    At the local level, in the wealthier counties, it’s all about amenities – locally funded – and not cheap, especially when you calculate the costs of benefits and pensions.

    I keep saying, we have met the enemy and it is us but no one wants to hear it.

    We don’t actually want to deal with the actual problems. Nope. We want to blame someone … administrators, bad teaches, too-rich pensions, etc…

  6. HillCityJim Avatar
    HillCityJim

    larryg,
    Yeah, your “style” does come across as a little, how shall I politely say, ….hmmm, can’t think of anything.
    Now it is OK to have an opinion, just respect those of us that might disagree with you.
    I will tell you that my Superintendent doesn’t defend spending on amenities, but claims our high(er) costs are because of the “poor children”.

    So the problem is because we (Lynchburg) are poor and with poor children, we are forced to fund way above stressful levels of funding (4th highest fiscal stress) when all the middle class white families live in the lower taxed bedroom communities that adjoin the city. And the kicker is that the programs that the state has to help these kids is funded via the Composite Index requiring the poor localities to have higher taxes than the localities that don’t have nearly the same percentage of problem kids.
    Until the state funds ALL the associated costs of Pre-K, HeadStart, and the remedial programs that add tons O’ money to the budget because of the poorer children, thus allowing only the extra amenities to be a part of the budgets, there will continue to be flight from the urban centers to the bedroom communities. But that’s just my humble opinion.

  7. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I’ll take the critique on my style under advisement – seriously.

    I try to always respect the person – but the argument – sometimes I don’t, I admit.

    re: poor kids

    I’d only ask to see the budget that clearly demonstrates that claim.

    I’ve seen a lot of school budgets and my take on them is that if you’re looking for information along those lines – for instance what elementary school costs are and especially costs for at-risk kids or costs for remedial education – good luck on that.

    I cannot even find in most budgets how many employees actually teach SOL-required subjects.

    but you know from most school budgets at the top – how much local money is spent – over and above what the required match is.

    For instance, look at this: http://jlarc.virginia.gov/reports/Rpt435.pdf
    for Lynchburg – looks like about 40 million for 2012. Now look at the actual Lynchburg School budget – about 94 million for 2012.

    Now – you tell me what the other 50 million was spent on … was it spent on “poor” kids?

    Your view of the composite index is interesting when the word in Fairfax (.8) is that they are getting “shorted” by localities (Lynchburg .37) that are not paying their fair share.

    but let me get back to the budget.

    About 1K per student is Fed funding for at risk kids – usually in the “Title” areas of Elementary school and THAT funding IS broken out – I think the Fed law requires it. For instance, if you actually search the Lynchburg School Budget for the word “Title” you’ll get a lot of into about how much money and exactly what it is spent on.

    Would Lynchburg actually spend local money for the Title programs if the Feds did not fund it? Most localities would not if past history is an indication.

    FY 2013-14 School Operating Budget Adopted by the Lynchburg City School Board
    June 4, 2013

    Now…try to find that level of budget granularity for SOL spending or local-funded spending for “at-risk”. (try that search also).

    So we hear the claims – but actually trying to get the actual data to confirm it is not so easy – except for the Federal Title programs.

    I’m after the truth HCJ. I simply think we cannot deal with reforms unless we are truly interested in dealing with the realities – and it’s a big problem these days. Everyone has their own version of the facts so that’s why I tend to try to focus on facts – that I see in data and documents – and I share them so others can go through them also.

    and the facts are that we add a lot of local funding beyond what the Feds and State provide – we know that. That’s right at the top of most School Budget summary data. And we also know that we have at most schools quite a few instructors that are not teaching SOL-required courses but it’s more anecdotal usually by looking at the list of courses offered at the high school level. We also know that virtually none of the K-3 subjects are “electives” – that virtually all of them are core-academic.

    How about you prove me wrong and you go look at the Lynchburg School Budget and tell me, for instance, how many elementary teachers are – and their costs or how many SOL teachers there are – and their costs or at-risk?

    Beyond that – trying to allocated more precisely – is not easy because of the way the budget documents are constructed – only the Fed data gets disclosed in that level of detail in most school budgets that I have looked at.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    HCJ – I have a response for you but it is “awaiting moderation” because I put links in it.

    here it is with one of the links removed:

    I’ll take the critique on my style under advisement – seriously.

    I try to always respect the person – but the argument – sometimes I don’t, I admit.

    re: poor kids

    I’d only ask to see the budget that clearly demonstrates that claim.

    I’ve seen a lot of school budgets and my take on them is that if you’re looking for information along those lines – for instance what elementary school costs are and especially costs for at-risk kids or costs for remedial education – good luck on that.

    I cannot even find in most budgets how many employees actually teach SOL-required subjects.

    but you know from most school budgets at the top – how much local money is spent – over and above what the required match is.

    For instance, look at this:
    State Spending on the Standards of Quality: FY 2012 (JLARC)
    for Lynchburg – looks like about 40 million for 2012. Now look at the actual Lynchburg School budget – about 94 million for 2012.

    Now – you tell me what the other 50 million was spent on … was it spent on “poor” kids?

    Your view of the composite index is interesting when the word in Fairfax (.8) is that they are getting “shorted” by localities (Lynchburg .37) that are not paying their fair share.

    but let me get back to the budget.

    About 1K per student is Fed funding for at risk kids – usually in the “Title” areas of Elementary school and THAT funding IS broken out – I think the Fed law requires it. For instance, if you actually search the Lynchburg School Budget for the word “Title” you’ll get a lot of into about how much money and exactly what it is spent on.

    Would Lynchburg actually spend local money for the Title programs if the Feds did not fund it? Most localities would not if past history is an indication.

    FY 2013-14 School Operating Budget Adopted by the Lynchburg City School Board June 4, 2013

    Now…try to find that level of budget granularity for SOL spending or local-funded spending for “at-risk”. (try that search also).

    So we hear the claims – but actually trying to get the actual data to confirm it is not so easy – except for the Federal Title programs.

    I’m after the truth HCJ. I simply think we cannot deal with reforms unless we are truly interested in dealing with the realities – and it’s a big problem these days. Everyone has their own version of the facts so that’s why I tend to try to focus on facts – that I see in data and documents – and I share them so others can go through them also.

    and the facts are that we add a lot of local funding beyond what the Feds and State provide – we know that. That’s right at the top of most School Budget summary data. And we also know that we have at most schools quite a few instructors that are not teaching SOL-required courses but it’s more anecdotal usually by looking at the list of courses offered at the high school level. We also know that virtually none of the K-3 subjects are “electives” – that virtually all of them are core-academic.

    How about you prove me wrong and you go look at the Lynchburg School Budget and tell me, for instance, how many elementary teachers are – and their costs or how many SOL teachers there are – and their costs or at-risk?

    Beyond that – trying to allocated more precisely – is not easy because of the way the budget documents are constructed – only the Fed data gets disclosed in that level of detail in most school budgets that I have looked at.

  9. HillCityJim Avatar
    HillCityJim

    larryg

    Nobody can ever prove you wrong.

    But here was the Superintendent’s presentation where he repeatedly told us that it costs more to educate the poor kids.

    http://www.lcsedu.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/news/2013-14-budget-presentation-council-030813.pdf

    Now as much as I like your verbal sparing on every one of the subjects on BR, I just don’t have the same amount of time, or expertise as you do. Any further questions about the LCS budget should be addressed to the Superintendent.

  10. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    No HCJ – you that wrong. I’m interested in facts and data more than opinion.

    The slides you share, I thank you for and he makes the case – but he does not make it with actual budget data .

    Basically he makes the assertion that I have – that disadvantaged kids are harder to teach and he goes into statistics but not money.

    I want to know how much money is currently devoted to the economically disadvantaged and you should too.

    I respect your views and thank you for sharing your perspective and I do not think that I am in a “contest” to “spar” with you and to win by having more time to do it. I am not trying to be “right”. I’m trying to get to the truth – and we get there when we start to agree on at least some things as opposed to viewing it as “sparring” just my view.

    My point is that we have to deal with the data and the facts if we are truly interested in understanding what we are doing and what we need to do.

    I did a short calculation this morning:

    the state gives you $4358 per kid but you spend $6700 MORE with local money.

    Tell me what you are spending that 6700 per student on locally?

    is it to provides more resources to the disadvantaged teaching needs?

    If I knew that Lynchburg was spending a LOT of local money specifically on teaching that demographic – I would be much more inclined to see the State get involved in it more but at this point I’m not convinced how much of that 6700 per kid is being expended on teaching disadvantaged kids and how much is spent on other stuff.

    It’s about priorities. Do we put more money on teaching the disadvantaged and less on amenities ?

    why do we expect the state to pay for the disadvantaged but not our amenities?

    I do ask tough questions sometimes. Not out of disrespect – although it sounds like it might be received that way.

    I simply think we are doing things wrong – on priorities – and we blame others, like the state, like the LCI, etc… instead of taking personal responsibility – at the local level – to prioritize this issue – and to effectively deal with it – as it has been demonstrated that you can in other areas who do prioritize that demographic.

    I apologize to you if I have rubbed you the wrong way.

  11. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    and here’s my problem HCJ.

    Our Superintendent guys up this way make similar arguments about the costs of education – and they use every opportunity from commenting on the unfairness of the LCI to pleas for a “quality” education – as a generic call for more discretionary money – not money targeted at claimed needs.

    What I want to see:

    1. – how much is being spent right now on at-risk/disadvantaged kids over and above typical costs – and for what? What things are the extra money being spent on specifically?

    2. what are the, so far, unfunded “needs” for the additional help needed by disadvantaged kids?

    3. what has been the local effort to specifically help these kids

    4. how much more is the locality willing to “match” a higher state contribution?

    specifics – not speaking of “poor” kids as a justification for more discretionary money – with no strings attached.

    I want to see it work like the Federal Title programs.

    The schools need to take direct ownership of the problem and demonstrate what they are doing towards that problem – right now, what they lack resources to do that needs to be done – and what prioritization are they willing to engage in BEFORE they just want more money.

    I’m a fiscal conservative who very strongly believes in education and I have no sympathy for the public school systems when they ask for more money without willing to prioritize and be transparent and accountable for their core academic performance – especially for at-risk kids. I’d be just fine with other schools – private, charter, choice, home using public money for education if I felt they were going to be – demonstrably responsible for the disadvantaged kids demographic – in exactly the same way public schools should be held accountable.

    education in this country has turned into a racket “for the kids” – but the “solution” seems to be more money and less accountability.

    Every kid that drops out or even ones that get a diploma but did not get a quality globally-competitive education – IS very likely going to end up needing entitlements from other kids who grow up and worse – perhaps incarceration, more families with one parent, etc.

    it’s not like it’s impossible. Virtually every other OECD country has done it.

    but for some reason, our culture comes up with so many excuses as to why we can’t fix it – it’s always someone’s fault… it’s frustrating…

Leave a Reply

Read More