In a message dated 9/6/2004 8:59:16 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< The articles claimed that Mpls school district spent $10,348 per student. But, they also said the district was a $630M district with 40,000 students. The later numbers translate into a cost of $15,750 per student. Can someone clarify? What are the right numbers? Why the confusion? >> The $15,750 per student is based on the total for all of the money the district takes in and spends. The figure given for per pupil funding in St. Paul is $8,848. That's exactly $1,500 dollars less than the per-pupil expenditure in Minneapolis. That per-pupil spending covers pretty much the same service areas: we are comparing apples to apples. St. Paul has the same poverty rate, a slightly higher pupil teacher ratio, a much lower "drop out" rate, similar test score averages and nearly as many students in the 2001-2002 school year (48,155 for Mpls and 45,115 for St. Paul) according to the Strib. - Sunday, September 5, 2004, table on page AA5, Gauging school performance. The $10,348 per student figure is probably based on money in the consolidated operating budget, which includes referendum money (for class size reduction) and does not include food services, transportation, community services, capital projects, debt service, reemployment, nonpublic school aid, and grants. Food services actually turned a profit last year, and the district provides transportation to private and charter school students as well as its own, which make it difficult to compare transportation expenses with those of other districts. And there is the issue of how much money was actually cut from the budget in the past four years. In 2002 I noted that the district had reported cutting something like 25 million then another 30 million from its budget. There had not been an actual reduction of revenues from year to year at that point. The district's budget was based on a higher-than-actual student enrollment figure and other miscalculations. Estimates of the enrollment decline from fall 2003 to fall 2004 have ranged from 3,000 to 7,000. The fall 2003 attendance was a little over 43,000. Estimates of this fall's enrollment have been as low as 36,000. In the Sunday Strib's op ed page the estimated enrollment was 38,000 and 40,000. -Doug Mann, King Field Mann for School Board www.educationright.com REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
