kitchen table math, the sequel: another satisfied customer, part 2

Monday, April 20, 2009

another satisfied customer, part 2

Irvington Parents Unite

This is an arresting moment. I've never met the woman who put up this web site, nor had I met the people distributing fliers at the train station until two weeks ago, when one of them attended the same budget forum I did. Hadn't heard tell of them, either.

Come to find out, as a management philosophy, "We do what we do"* doesn't work any better for other people than it does for me.

Particularly not when superintendents doing what they do doubles the budget in 10 years' time.


compare and contrast

budget school year 2000/2001: $24,124,756 district enrollment: 1744
budget school year 2008/2009: $50,583,424 district enrollment: 1888

Differentiated instruction doesn't come cheap.


bonus factoid

athletic teams:
2000-2001: 46 teams / 58 coaches
2008-2009: 64 teams / 77 coaches

Sixty four teams, seventy seven coaches, a $50 million dollar budget for 1900 kids --- and no intramural program to speak of.

I wonder why that is.


bonus factoid, part 2

enrollment 2008/2009:
grade 9: 150 students
Kindergarten: 127 students

projected Kindergarten enrollment 2009/2009: 119


* or, alternatively, "The answer is no"


trouble in paradise
more trouble in paradise
another satisfied customer, part 2

4 comments:

Independent George said...

25k/student... wow. How is that even possible?

Anonymous said...

It's kind of like the town of Irvington High School.

SusanS

Independent George said...

Presumably the land/building are owned by the county; does this include the imputed cost of ownership - that is, the rents/taxes foregone by the town by public ownership? It's awful high either way, but utterly ridiculous if we're talking about 50 million in actual expenditures.

lgm said...

Can you split the budget down further? In my district, the whopping increases were due to increases in retirement funding, teacher and admin salary (6% raise in just the last two years), the medical insurance coverage, special education, and the contract for transportation (we transport up to two hours one-way for individualized SPED services and whatever for homeless, so the cost adds up quickly).