Reply to ACPS and TJ

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You can't compare the spending per student for ACPS vs FCPS without comparing the number of students in each school system.  Fairfax County is the largest school system in the state of VA with over 186,000 students.  There is a significant economy of scale that comes with being such a large school system. Alexandria has just over 14,000 students.  Fairfax has a budget of over $2.5 billion, versus ACPS's $250 million.[/quote]

Oh, please.  Have you seen the TC Williams building?  At $98 million, one of the most expensive public school buildings in the US.  I went to an excellent public school that did not happen to have a planetarium and did just fine.   [/quote]

This is from a 2007 Forbes article, but I bet it still holds (Alexandria was the worst school in the country on a scale that compared adjusted cost per student with results):

Marin County, Calif., provides the best bang for the buck. In 2004 Marin spent an average of $9,356 ($6,579 adjusted for the cost of living relative to other metro areas in the U.S.) per pupil, among the lowest education expenditures in the country. But in return Marin delivered results above the national average: 96.8% of its seniors graduated, and 60.4% of them took the SAT college entrance exam and scored a mean 1133 (out of 1600). The others in the top five are Collin, Texas; Hamilton, Ind.; Norfolk, Mass.; and Montgomery, Md.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Alexandria City, Va., which sits just six miles outside of our nation?s capital, spent $13,730 ($11,404 adjusted) per pupil, but its high schools registered only a 73% graduation rate, with 65.0% of the seniors participating in the SAT for a mean score of 963. According to John Porter, assistant superintendent, Administrative Services and Public Relations for the Alexandria City Public Schools, their graduation rate is reflective of a large number of foreign-born students who may take longer than the traditional four years to graduate. He also noted that their performance measures are rising, along with their expenditures. Per-pupil spending in Alexandria City is now over $18,000. Others on the bottom of the list include Glynn, Ga.; Washington, D.C.; Ulster, N.Y.; and Beaufort, S.C.[/quote]

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