DC CAS popular schools summary
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Anonymous
And how do you know that? Indirect costs (I.e., central admin. salaries, IMPACT, special DCPS wide programs, etc) can very well account for the "missing" money. The fact remains that the per pupil spending at Oyster is $11k and some change, compared to much more at LAMB. I'm really only concerned with Oyster because that is/will be the only DCPS my kids attend. Until you produce proof that says otherwise, you really have nothing. Your conjecture simply doesn't count. If you think that you're on to something, please let the Washington Post know all about it. Let the pros uncover this vast DCPS funding conspiracy of which you speak. |
Anonymous
Due to DCPS budget cuts, Oyster no longer has two teachers per class (except in PK). So please pay attention and keep up. Btw, how many teachers per class do other immersion charters have right now? |
Anonymous
This is not about conspiracies, it's about getting you to use your head and understand the big picture. All DCPS schools including Oyster benefit from those indirect spending line items, to include the admin line items, textbooks, facilities and those "special DC-wide programs" - there is no "conspiracy" or mystery about it - those things cost money and in many cases are big ticket items - like facilities - and in DCPS, they add a around a million dollars a year for every hundred students, whereas charters are entirely on their own to provide all of those things - they don't get facilities, textbooks, administrative staff or other items furnished to them by DCPS - all the things not shown in those individual school budgets because they are in the overall DCPS budget. Charters do not get $100 million thrown at them by the city for facilities as was just the case with Dunbar, and that's where some of the cost comes from, as DCPS works its way through various capital improvement projects for its many schools. The city does not do the same for charters; charters get none of the indirect resource contributions. Although there have been some thinking exercises presented (such as the one above which dispelled the idea that DCPS spending is higher because of special needs) there's really no great mystery or conjecture about it, nor any need to go running to the media - the Washington Post and others have already reported on average spending per student in DCPS and know well the reality of the situation. Everyone knows it, the only person trying to deny it is you. The bottom line IS that average cost is $30,000 per student in the DCPS system when you add direct cost and indirect cost, and that IS the correct number to use when you compare to LAMB or other charters, because the charter numbers include all of their indirect costs as well. |
Anonymous
The average cost per pupil is $11k at Oyster--that's the only school I care about lady. An apples to apples comparison is the direct cost to educate a child at Oyster vs. LAMB and any other charter. Do you think that charters deserve to be given brand new buildings every time someone decides to experiment? Charters assume and accept the responsibility of educating their children with the money they have in their budget. I'm certain that my children do not benefit from special needs funding, Kaya's salary, etc. The direct costs to educate my children at Oyster are less than the direct costs to educate children at LAMB. Everyone knows that, the only person trying to deny it is you! I'm very pleased my kids' school...are you? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
What about we pay this level of attention to the 50% schools, charter or not, performing under average? THAT is the problem. |
Anonymous
I don't have kids at either Oyster or LAMB but am bewildered by the lopsided comparisons being made. I just compared budget documents between Oyster and LAMB and found there are a lot of operating costs on the LAMB budget that aren't included in the Oyster budget. Going line by line and doing a more representative apples-to-apples comparison, I just came up with $10,025 per student at LAMB to compare with the per-student cost cited in the Oyster budget, it's not $18,000. |
Anonymous
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In summary:
DCPS costs more. Credibility of saying otherwise: 0 Dead horse: well beaten |
Anonymous
And yet you keep beating it. |
Anonymous
Demonstrate you have a brain by showing how these two statements may be compatible: 1) as a whole, the cost per pupil at dcps schools is higher than charters 2) specific dcps schools, such as oyster, may well cost less, per pupil, than specific charter schools Net net: cost itself doesn't seem to be the cause of high or low school performance. Don't we have more important things to deal with? |
Anonymous
+ 1 |
Anonymous
Demonstrate that you have a brain by understanding once and for all that Oyster costs significantly more than $11,000 per student, because the $11,000 figure that keeps getting thrown around is basically just staffing cost and discretionary spending, and does not include the cost of their buildings, the heat, electric bill and other utility bills, does not include textbooks, school lunches and so on - and those are significant costs. And, when you include those costs, it runs the tab significantly higher than the comparable cost for a charter. None of the DCPS individual school budget sheets reflect the full cost, it's not as though Oyster is any special case of spending less per student than other DCPS schools. Overall, DCPS schools cost significantly more per student than the charters do. The only thing I will agree on is that in this case, cost per student does not correlate with school performance. |
Anonymous
This isn't accurate DC Prep's EMC campus is higher than most of these. |
Anonymous
Here's why it matters: something like 2/3's of DCPS budget is outside of per-pupil expenditures. Either: 1. That other 2/3's benefits the schools indirectly, in which case the charters are being short-changed; or 2. That other 2/3's is of no benefit, in which case every student and every taxpayer is being cheated, out of hundreds of millions of dollars. I'll accept the possibility that the DCPS spending advances the goals fo public education in general without benefiting specific schools. An example already given is special education, but it was also shown that special ed could only account for a small fraction of the missing money. In order for this possibility to be plausible, some one has to come up with more valid examples. |
Anonymous
No. I was in that school every and it was "la la playland" all year long, with groups of elementary kids walking to and fro in the hallways at any time of day. And they did enough test prep and PIAs that they had to have known the horrible CAS scores were coming. Shakespeare is nice, but abysmal math scores are not acceptable. |