k-5 teachers. annual cost of a class?

[smilingcat]

I've been raising cane lately at my city.

raising cane over master bike plan. Sharrows versus bike lanes. Bike lanes for kids going to school and such.

Also been raising cane over planned imrpovement of the "main" street for my town. It was a done deal when I went to give my 2 cents. Still did anyway. Talk about waste of money.

And today, I was raising cane over budget shortfall for our tiny school district. I thought it was out of line so want to have some idea on what your school district pays per year for a class. # of students per instructors and annual cost of a class.

The school district in my city has a budget of $10,500,000 of which $8,500,000 comes from California state. With other sources of funding, we are short by about $1,500,000. Next year enrollement total is 1200 students for k-5. And we have roughly 20 students per class. Sooo, we have close to $9,000 ($8,750 more exact) per student per year in total cost. times 20students per class and we arrive at $175,000 per class per year. Now how much does a teacher make?? $40k, $50K??? With all the compensation and benefits added I can't imagine k-5 school teacher getting $80,000. Doesn't the $175K figure seem bit outlandish? Naturally, I asked for the breakdown of the expenses in terms of a class rather than a total. I thoght this would make far more sense. They could not give me an answer.

Answer I did get were following:

"Well we are not sophisticated like a multi-nationals so we can't analyze the data... like you do." (I said, "I'm a program manager at a multi-national and program cost, expenditure are of great interest to me.")

"Our finances arer totally transparent, and you can see it in great detail on our city's web site"

Having all the data in the world don't do anyone any good unless you can make sense out of it. :mad:

Soo my questions to you teachers is do you have any idea what your school districts' cost of running a class for one calendar year. And if you do know, is it higher or lower than $175,000. Our school does not have second language, nor special needs program as far as I am aware. PE consists of 20 minute walk around the play ground to meet the 200min/10school day mandated by state of California. Newly built gymnasium for the children go unused. :( Music instruction is minimal, art instruction is also minimal. The budget shortfall is serious enough that board is considering of lay-off of science teacher and closing of school library. :mad: :mad: Text books are old and one substitute teacher blasted by saying that the geography book has countries listed which no longer exist and hasn't existed for quite some time. There are also no lockers for the kids so they all lug around 30-50 pounds of text books and workbooks each day. :mad: :mad:

I'm seriously thinking for running for a board seat come this November. There are three seats open. And they welcome any one who has more of "business" sense rather than a teacher/educator/parent background.

I personally do not mind paying extra taxes for a good cause (school is one of them) but to waste is no excuse in my book especially when the teachers are asked for a paycut forget about COLA!!

thanks for letting me rant.

GRRR!!!!

[Veronica]

How much a teacher makes depends upon how long they have been teaching and how much education they. Here's a link to the salary schedule for my district. Generally getting your credential puts a new teacher in the BA + 30 column.

http://www.antiochteachers.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/salary06-07.pdf

Do the 4th and 5th grade classes really only have 20 students per class. Class size reduction is only funded by the state for K - 3.

Veronica

[Veronica]

Oh art and music, went out when high stakes testing came in.

What grade were you when you took Algebra 1? The push now is for EVERYONE to have it in 8th grade or earlier.

Veronica

[sfa]

The figure doesn't seem outlandish to me. In the grant budgets I work on, we figure 28% for benefits and 50% for indirect costs, which is supposed to help support the things you aren't considering in your numbers--keeping the lights on, toilet paper in the bathrooms, the building maintained, etc. But a public elementary school is going to have so many more costs that I don't have to figure in the budget for a community college program--the public school will have transportation costs (which are huge--in my last job working with a school arts program, the cost of getting kids to a program by bus would often cost more than the program itself), breakfast and lunch programs, textbooks and materials (college students pay for those themselves), far more administrative costs (the public elementary school has to comply with curriculum and testing requirements that bring in levels of administration that make my head spin), and, as you mentioned, all of the "specials" like music and art. And in spite of what you say, the school DOES have a special needs program. If there are children with special needs in your district (and there are in every district in the country), the schools are paying for them. In your local school it might just be paying for a PT school counselor and reading specialist to handle kids who just need a bit of support, but the kids with Down Syndrome and autism and CP are being educated *somewhere* and the district is paying for that. If the district doesn't have the programs themselves, they pay for the children to attend a private specialized school or to attend programs in other districts. It's more common, though, to have the special needs programs concentrated in just a few schools, so the kids with autism in your neighborhood will go to a school in the district but not their "home" school. If the district is particularly small, though, they won't have the resources for that and will have to send out of district or to a private program, which is far more expensive per student than educating in a local program.

Out of curiosity, I just ran the numbers for our district to find out how much is spent per student. I don't know the average class size, and the budget is for the full district, so I can't figure the cost per class for K-5. But the total spent per student in our district is $11,312. $8,750 per student sounds like a bargain, and with the reduced education your kids are getting (no gym, minimal music and art), it sounds like you're getting what you pay for.

Sarah

[salsabike]

There's a ton of data readily available about this--

http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/Articles/article.asp?title=California%20comparison

Effort: Per-Pupil Expenditures
Perhaps the most salient measure of a state’s effort is how much it spends per pupil. California remains below the national average in per-pupil expenditures, ranking 29th in 2005–06, according to the National Education Association (NEA) Rankings & Estimates 2006–07. At $8,486, California was at 93% of the national average and ranked in the middle of the five most populous states.

Expenditures per K–12 Pupil in Fall Enrollment for California
Over the Last 10 Years
California Rank U.S Average
2005–06 $8,486 29 $9,100
2004–05 $7,935 30 $8,717
2003–04 $7,745 27 $8,340
2002–03 $7,580 26 $8,065
2001–02 $7,055 31 $7,532
2000–01 $7,018 24 $7,296
1999–00 $6,333 27 $6,824
1998–99 $5,666 36 $6,455
1997–98 $5,580 31 $6,174
1996–97 $5,191 36 $5,949

Data: National Education Association (NEA) Rankings and Estimates.

Expenditures per K–12 Pupil in Fall Enrollment
for the Five Largest States, 2005-06
Expenditures per K-12 pupil in fall enrollment, 2005-06 Rank Percentage of national average
California $8,486 29 93.3%
Texas $7,547 44 82.9%
New York $13,551 3 148.9%
Florida $7,762 41 85.3%
Illinois $9,456 21 103.9%
United States $9,100

Data: National Education Association (NEA) Rankings and Estimates 2006-07.

[Irulan]

This is what I've dug up quickly on WA state:


3. Teacher Salaries. Teachers in our state are paid primarily based on how long they've had their job, not on how well they do it. Unfortunately, the state's rigid salary structure (a gift from the teachers' union) means some excellent teachers are paid less than they're worth, while some poor teachers (who probably shouldn't be in the classroom at all) are paid more. The average teacher salary in Washington state is $45,265. Factoring in benefits and supplemental contracts puts the average total compensation at $61,620.

4. Spending per pupil. Figuring out how much Washington spends per pupil each year in K-12 schools is like trying to pick up a wet bar of soap. The numbers are elusive. The most recent data from OSPI say the state spends $9,454 per pupil. The most recent estimates from the National Education Association put the figure as high as $10,127. Even erring on the low side, are we ready to say we can't provide most children with a quality education for $9,454 a year?

Based on my understanding of what is happening to California's budget and mini-economy, it's probably not a good barometer to compare against the other fifty states.

[Tri Girl]

$40-50K? Ha ha- that's cute! I've been teaching for 11 years and I only make a base pay of $33K, with benefits it's $36. I'll NEVER make it to 50K even after 25+ years of teaching with a doctorate. :) Granted, cost of living is less in Oklahoma, but STILL (my DH works for the PO without a degree and he makes twice as much as me). ;)

Here's our state pay scale. My district is one of the highest paid districts and pays slightly higher than this (but not by very much). Notice it maxes out at 25 years- you never make more if you teach more than 25 years. Awesome. I'll max out at $43,900- double awesome. :) We rank near the bottom of the nation in pay.
http://sde.state.ok.us/Teacher/Salary/default.html

We also rank at the bottom for average spending per student (47th). We spend an average of $7600 (national average is about $10,000).

Art and foreign language instruction is left to me in the classroom with all the free time I have trying to get them ready for all that high stakes testing. My kids go to PE and Music (alternating between the two daily). I'm not certified to teach art or a foreign language- but yet I'm supposed to just pick that up, I suppose.

And our class size is at 26 this year (k-3 is limited to 22). There is state legislation that has passed the House and is moving to the Senate to eliminate class sizes to help with budget constraints. WE COULD HAVE NO CLASS SIZE LIMITS SOON. Insane. 26 is difficult enough- put 30-35 in a class and we will get NOTHING done worthwhile. It's the same bill that is proposing merit based pay based on your students test scores. Insane. I don't mind being accountable,but don't base my pay on how 10 year olds perform on a terribly created test given one week out of the year (especially when I have kids who tell me they don't care about the test and are planning on putting all C's). Grrrrr....

[smilingcat]

Thank you ladies for the links. I will be pouring over the information and try to make one for one comparison to my city.

Hermosa Beach encompasses about 2 square miles with population of around 20,000. Average household is 1.97 or there abouts and only 15% of the household have children...

We have no bussing for the kids. We have two k-5 schools and third is unusable due to asbestos and other environmental concern. That building is rented out to some business.

The district is small, so kids in middle school and high school go to either Redondo Beach or Manhattan Beach school district.

The really unfortunate thing right now for the district is that they can not continue on the current path financially! IT ISN'T SUSTAINABLE!! The budget shorfall 2 years ago was made up by fundraisers (about $300,000), last year that figure ballooned to about ($1,000,000). We are looking the deficit to rise to about ($1,500,000). Last year, the school had requested families to donate upwards of $1,000 per child and many did.

The meeting I attended was requested by both the city council and by the school board in looking ways to mitigate the budget shortfalls or means to adjust the programs so that it is within the allotted budget.

My initial impression was that of aghast at how little of the money went to direct expense, teacher's salary and their compensation. less than 30% of total budget to direct expense. Twice that to support?? WOW!! It just doesn't seem right in my book!

Before I go ballistic over the finances, I wanted to look at what other districts' budget and their breakdown looks like. So thank you for your links.

I'm still really irked by comment about "well we are not multi-national and we are not as sophisticated..." IT'S MY MONEY AND IT'S MY COMMUNITY AND THEY BETTER SPEND IT WISELY!! It's also sad that people with financial background were not there to help out the school district.

[Crankin]

You got a really stupid reply from the school board. These things vary greatly from state to state. Here in MA, the state contributes almost nothing to local districts (well, in comparison to other places). Per pupil cost varies anywhere between 4K and 15K per kid. I could easily see the 175K per class estimate, given salaries (yes, they are higher here. I was making 71K when I quit, with an MA plus 60). The cost of running old buildings with poor environmental systems and everything else that's crumbling adds up.
I don't know the answer to this problem, but I say run for the school board. The kids need people who are concerned, like you!