DELAWARE PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT EDUCATION SPENDING Office of Lieutenant Governor Matthew Denn

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1 DELAWARE PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT EDUCATION SPENDING 2012 Office of Lieutenant Governor Matthew Denn This is the third annual report issued by the Lieutenant Governor's Office reporting the degree to which Delaware's public schools spend their funds on direct educational services (as opposed to administrative expenses, transportation expenses, and other operating expenses). The purpose of this report is to provide parents and taxpayers with information regarding the spending practices of the school districts in which they live.[1] The ultimate goal of providing this information is to encourage school districts to direct more public dollars into the classroom and less into administrative overhead. This report focuses on expenditures in the school year. Notably, by the time of the school year, this office had already begun issuing this annual report, and school districts were aware that spending was being tracked in this manner. Therefore, this is the first set of data that might reflect adjustments in school district practices to respond to challenges raised in the first annual report. This year s report shows one significant overall change in the school year, as compared to prior years: the disparity between schools that are spending the highest percentages of funds on direct educational services and the other school districts significantly narrowed compared to the two prior school years. In the prior two school years, my office calculated that if all of the school districts were spending on direct educational services at the same ratios as the districts with the five highest percentages, over $28 million additional dollars could be spent on such direct educational services. This year, that figure is $21,133,243, a 26% improvement over the prior school year. While this certainly leaves substantial room for improvement, it suggests that some school districts began making a focused effort during the first school year after these statistics were made available to concentrate on direct educational services. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that the gap between schools spending the most on direct educational expenses and those spending the least dropped. In the school year, the district spending the highest percentage of its funds on direct educational expenses had a percentage 6.14 points higher than the district spending the lowest percentage. In , that gap dropped to 3.51%. Improvements by two large school districts account for a significant portion of the improvement over prior years. The Christina School District and the Appoquinimink School District, both of which had ranked among the three districts with the lowest percentage of funds spent on direct educational expenses in the and school years, significantly improved their performance on this metric in the school year. This report is not designed to conclusively determine which school districts have the best or worst spending practices. Not all direct educational expenses are necessarily good ones, and not all administrative expenses are necessarily bad ones.[2] The report is designed, however, to alert parents and taxpayers as to which districts are spending significant sums in areas other than direct educational expenses, so those parents and taxpayers can ask appropriate questions of their school district administrators and school board members. In difficult financial times, school 1

2 districts must be increasingly conscientious about their spending practices if they are to adequately compensate teachers and pay for other classroom basics. Background (same background applies to Vo-Tech & Charter Report) This annual report is one of a series of actions that have been taken since early 2008 to try to encourage Delaware public school districts to spend a higher percentage of their public dollars in the classroom. Part of the motivation for this focus on classroom spending is national data suggesting that Delaware schools are spending a smaller percentage of their public funds on direct educational expenses than schools in surrounding states.in November 2011, the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics released its report on revenues and expenditures for public school districts. As mentioned in my report last year, in the school year, Delaware spent a smaller percentage of its public education funds on direct educational expenses than any surrounding state that filed statistics in the 2010 report, a smaller percentage than Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Rhode Island. [3] In January 2008, a committee created by then-governor Ruth Ann Minner and co-chaired by Vision 2015 Chairman Skip Schoenhals and then-secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff issued a comprehensive report detailing millions of dollars in potential inefficiencies in Delaware's public school spending. The committee recommended possible savings in a variety of areas including bus transportation and administrative overhead.[4] In 2009, the General Assembly passed and Governor Jack Markell signed House Substitute 1 for House Bill 119. This legislation required all school districts to establish citizen budget oversight committees, and also required the Department of Education to set goals for district spending on instruction and instruction-related expenses, and to compile data on school districts' performance in this area. The Lieutenant Governor's office began issuing this report in 2010 to augment the other information compiled by the state. The data contained in this report is slightly different than the data collected and reported by the Department of Education, in that this report considers expenditures in categories such as speech pathology, audiology, guidance, health, and psychological services to be "direct educational expenses." These expenditures are included because (a) they generally involve direct interaction between school personnel and students targeted specifically at student achievement, and (b) to exclude them would make it appear (incorrectly) that districts spending heavily on students with particular special needs were not directing their funds to students. The data reflected in this report is reported by the school districts themselves, and the categories into which the expenditures fall are categories created and defined by the United States Department of Education ( ). The information is neither generated by nor categorized by the Lieutenant Governor's office. 2

3 Calculation of Direct Educational Spending (same information, with exception of capacity, applies to Vo-Tech & Charter Report) The data summarized by this report is drawn from the most recent spending statistics posted by the Department of Education in individual school district profiles. These profiles reflect spending percentages from the last completed school year (the year). The table prepared by the Lieutenant Governor's office shows five statistics for all districts, and a sixth statistic for eleven of the school districts. All statistics are in percentages with the exception of the dollar amount in the last column: 1. Instructional service: These are expenses for activities related to the interaction between teachers and students. It includes salaries and benefits for teachers and teacher aides, textbooks, supplies, and purchased services.[5] 2. Instructional support: This includes instructional staff training, educational media (library and audiovisual), and other instructional staff support services. 3. Support Services/Students: This includes attendance and social work, guidance, health, psychological services, speech pathology, audiology, and other student support services. 4. Total (Direct Educational Service): This represents the total of instruction expenses, instruction support, and student support. This total is an effort to represent total district spending on direct educational services to students. As noted above, "student support" is added to "instructional expenses" and "instruction support" in recognition of the fact that many of the services provided under "student support" are a direct part of the educational mission for many of the district's students, and that some districts by virtue of their student population must make disproportionate expenses in this category.[6] 5. Administrative Costs: This represents expenses for school and district administration (superintendent and supporting staff, Board of Education and supporting staff, principals and supporting staff, school district staff not included in other categories), and supplies and other purchased services relating to those staff activities. 6. Capacity: The "capacity" column represents the amount of extra funds that school districts could spend on direct educational services if they spent on direct educational services at the same rate as the average of the five Delaware districts with the best performance in this area. For example, the Cape Henlopen School District could spend an additional $653,642 on direct educational services if it spent on those services in the same proportion as the average of the Seaford, Caesar Rodney, Delmar, Capital, and Milford School Districts. The chart does not reflect expenditures on food services, student transportation, and school operations/maintenance, which is why the percentage totals do not add up to 100%. 3

4 What Does the Data Tell Us? Although the statistics speak for themselves, they reveal several notable facts about spending in Delaware's public school districts. 1. With a small number of exceptions, Delaware's public school districts ranked roughly in the school year where they had the previous year with respect to the comparative percentage of their public funds spent on direct educational expenses. As previously noted, the Appoquinimink and Christina School Districts substantially improved in comparison to other school districts. Among the reasons for Appoquinimink s improved standing was a decrease of one full percent of its funds spent on administrative expenses. 2. The three school districts that reported the highest percentages of their funds spent on direct educational expenditures were the Seaford, Caesar Rodney, and Delmar School Districts. 3. The two school districts that reported the lowest percentages of their funds spent on direct educational expenses were the Red Clay and Laurel School Districts. Red Clay has identified an increase in its number of school-level administrators, specifically assistant principals, as a likely cause of the decrease in the percentage of its funds spent on direct educational expenses as compared to the prior year, and emphasized that the change does not reflect an increase in staffing at the central district level. 4. If all sixteen of the public school districts for which data was reported were to invest in direct educational expenditures at the average rate of the five districts that had the highest level of investment in this area, the state could move a total of $21.1 million into direct educational expenses without increasing taxes. While this is a significant amount, it represents a 26% reduction in the amount calculated for last year. A reasonable interpretation of this change is that several school districts decided to focus on this issue during the school year. 5. The gap between schools spending the most on direct educational expenses and those spending the least dropped for the second consecutive year. In the school year, the district spending the highest percentage of its funds on direct educational expenses had a percentage 7.88 points higher than the district spending the lowest percentage. In , that gap dropped to 6.14 percentage points. In this year s report, the gap is further reduced to 3.51%. As with the prior statistic, the fact that the gap has narrowed between the schools sending the highest percentages of funds into direct educational expenses and those sending the lowest percentages suggests that school districts are now more focused on this issue. 6. Across the board, spending on direct educational expenses dropped for the second consecutive year. The districts do not report statistics in a way that allows for a precise description of what caused this overall change. Possible explanations could include increases in energy, fuel, and food costs at a time when other costs (such as salary) have been tightly controlled. 4

5 School District Comments Prior to preparing this report, the Lieutenant Governor's office offered each school district an opportunity to note any unique aspects of its practices that might appear to inflate the amounts that it spent on items that were not categorized as direct educational expenses. A small number of districts responded and their full responses are available in their entirety. Most of the responses were general cautionary notes or criticisms regarding year-to-year categorical analyses of school district spending. Conclusion Although this report is focused on statistics, it is ultimately about the children who rely upon our public education system to secure for them the ability to fulfill their potential and lead happy, successful lives. We have a profound obligation to these children to ensure that the money Delawareans invest in their education is spent prudently, with the quality of education as the sole motivating force behind each spending decision. We hope that taxpayers and parents in our local school districts will use this report to ensure that their money is spent wisely, and that their children receive a quality education. [1] A separate report will be issued regarding spending practices by vocational technical schools and charter schools. [2] One national report issued last year demonstrated the challenge of trying to comprehensively rank school district spending practices. In January, 2011, the Center for American Progress issued a report entitled "Return on Educational Investment: A District-by-District Evaluation of U.S. Educational Productivity." The report attempted to use mathematical formulas to control for the impact of student income on student performance, and then compare district spending to student test results. In the case of Delaware, however, the report's formula had the simple result of assigning its lowest rankings to the state's highest-poverty school districts, and with the exception of Red Clay and Milford, its highest rankings to the state's wealthiest school districts. [3] "Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts: School Year (Fiscal Year 2009), National Center for Education Statistics, November [4] The report summary can be found at [5] The "Instruction," "Instruction Support," and "Student Support" categories are categories defined by the United States Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics. [6] NCES and the Delaware Department of Education use an additional term called "instructionrelated expenses" which simply combined the instruction and instructional support categories. As noted, this report also includes the category of "student support" in an effort to fully reflect expenditures that directly impact students' classroom education. 5