Anonymous wrote:No amount of spending can offset the effect of poor families with poorly motivated and behaved children in the schools. I lived in upstate New York and they have the same problems as here. Many “bad schools” despite the higher spending. So what’s the common factor between a “bad school” that spends $12k per student and a “bad school” that spends 25k per student? I assure you, it’s “bad families” in the school district lol

Anonymous wrote:APS is 6 times bigger than Cambridge in terms of head count. In NY and NJ - and i think in MA too - they are well known for having much smaller districts. I presume that impacts the cost of things.

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Anonymous wrote:APS is 6 times bigger than Cambridge in terms of head count. In NY and NJ - and i think in MA too - they are well known for having much smaller districts. I presume that impacts the cost of things.

I assume taxes are also higher in Cambridge.

Probably. We should raise taxes and spend more on education.

Taxes could be higher. They aren’t, so as to allow older folks to age in place and to keep lower income homeowners in their neighborhoods. Also, the middle is getting really squeezed. If we want to beef up the “missing middle,” higher taxes present a challenge. Basically, it’s not going to happen, not since the county doesn’t really give a d*** about schools and thinks they already get too much of the budget.

Which ironic because the county’s number one priority is affordable housing, which generates more school aged kids than any other type.

Anonymous wrote:Those may not be comparing apples to apples....the $19K number for Arlington is operational costs, and doesn't include the cost of debt service because that doesn't allow a "fair" comparison across districts (that is, a system that just rebuilt two schools would have higher debt service costs than a district that didn't, even if its operational costs were lower). I'm not going to follow those links to dig out whether those are the "all in" costs (total budget divided by number of students) or just the annual operating budget divided by number of students, but take any comparison among districts with a grain of salt.*

*The local districts publish a book every year where they use the same denominators, it's called the Washington Area Boards of Education guide, and it does allow comparison between the major local systems including Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, MOCO, etc.

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Anonymous wrote:APS is 6 times bigger than Cambridge in terms of head count. In NY and NJ - and i think in MA too - they are well known for having much smaller districts. I presume that impacts the cost of things.

I assume taxes are also higher in Cambridge.

Probably. We should raise taxes and spend more on education.

Taxes could be higher. They aren’t, so as to allow older folks to age in place and to keep lower income homeowners in their neighborhoods. Also, the middle is getting really squeezed. If we want to beef up the “missing middle,” higher taxes present a challenge. Basically, it’s not going to happen, not since the county doesn’t really give a d*** about schools and thinks they already get too much of the budget.

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Anonymous wrote:PP here. I also want to point out that Cambridge has also historically spent a lot on programs that make it the testing ground for a number of pioneering programs on school choice, integration, etc. This is not true of other "normal" school districts.

Its small size and its proximity to multiple universities/research institutions (not just Harvard/MIT but also schools like Lesley that specialize in education) drive this.

All good reasons for raising the per pupil spending in APS - we are the opposite of innovative.

APS doesn't have the access to researchers, community support (sorry, but APS parents are not the same as typical CPS parents), and the small size for this. It is a waste of funds in the case of APS to try to do this. APS can imitate and copy best practices from Cambridge at a lower cost per person, but it cannot and should not do the same thing with regard to being a testing ground where these practices are identified.

Yes, I wasn’t saying to create a whole education incubator. We should increase spending though so we stop heading in the opposite direction. AKA cutting services and programs. Year after year we are paring down to bare basics.

So let’s increase per pupil spending and copy some of the successful programs/practices from more innovative systems.

How much would you increase spending? The schools currently get ~50% of the budget. What percentage do you think it should be, remembering that most people do not have kids in school?

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Anonymous wrote:PP here. I also want to point out that Cambridge has also historically spent a lot on programs that make it the testing ground for a number of pioneering programs on school choice, integration, etc. This is not true of other "normal" school districts.

Its small size and its proximity to multiple universities/research institutions (not just Harvard/MIT but also schools like Lesley that specialize in education) drive this.

All good reasons for raising the per pupil spending in APS - we are the opposite of innovative.

APS doesn't have the access to researchers, community support (sorry, but APS parents are not the same as typical CPS parents), and the small size for this. It is a waste of funds in the case of APS to try to do this. APS can imitate and copy best practices from Cambridge at a lower cost per person, but it cannot and should not do the same thing with regard to being a testing ground where these practices are identified.

Yes, I wasn’t saying to create a whole education incubator. We should increase spending though so we stop heading in the opposite direction. AKA cutting services and programs. Year after year we are paring down to bare basics.

So let’s increase per pupil spending and copy some of the successful programs/practices from more innovative systems.

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Anonymous wrote:APS is 6 times bigger than Cambridge in terms of head count. In NY and NJ - and i think in MA too - they are well known for having much smaller districts. I presume that impacts the cost of things.

I’m sure there are many factors, but someone on another thread disputed the premise that APS per pupil spending isn’t much lower than other school districts in the NE.

That’s not how I read that conversation, but spin as you will.

Poster 1: Are you implying that Arlington doesn’t spent A LOT on education?

Poster 2: Not compared to other school systems in the Northeast.

Poster 1: Based on those comparisons, how much do you think Arlington should be spending on a per pupil basis? How much are those school systems you referenced spending?

I think you mean Poster 1, Poster 2, and Poster 3.

And you just proved that:

someone on another thread disputed the premise that APS per pupil spending isn’t much lower than other school districts in the NE.

didn’t happen.

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Anonymous wrote:APS is 6 times bigger than Cambridge in terms of head count. In NY and NJ - and i think in MA too - they are well known for having much smaller districts. I presume that impacts the cost of things.

I’m sure there are many factors, but someone on another thread disputed the premise that APS per pupil spending isn’t much lower than other school districts in the NE.

That’s not how I read that conversation, but spin as you will.

Poster 1: Are you implying that Arlington doesn’t spent A LOT on education?

Poster 2: Not compared to other school systems in the Northeast.

Poster 1: Based on those comparisons, how much do you think Arlington should be spending on a per pupil basis? How much are those school systems you referenced spending?