Peyton Wolcott Explains Financial Exigency
Submitted by Allen Gwinn on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 08:05.
Peyton Wolcott is a blogger from Central Texas who follows school district issues nationwide.
She has put together a fairly comprehensive piece about what it means to declare a state of "financial exigency."
A must read....
It is also important to note that Wolcott made important suggestions where DISD should cut. In fine, she is making distinction between necessary and luxury items. In times of financial crisis, indulging in luxury items is simply inappropriate. Teaching- learning is a non-negotiable item!
I hope TEA is taking a proactive role in the solution of this problem. I do not know the extent of its authority over school districts but I believe that as the Agency, it can take necessary steps to preserve the integrity of the school system and uphold the dignity of the teaching profession.
In the meantime, the school district is poised to terminate classroom teachers!!!!! Is this the best possible solution available????? I am not aware that this question was fully and intelligently discussed at the last meeting. Pardon me if I am mistaken.
I agree THIS IS A MUST READ
http://www.peytonwolcott.com/
Check it out!!
I am afraid we only see the tip of the ice berg with the monkeys in charge! The kids are the biggest losers ever!
I hope the TEA takes charge and gets things on a balanced and transparent program and the money goes to the kids for the little folks that make the school. The administration are there to NOT PROVIDE APPROPRIATE SERVICE. The responsibility is to have a school ready and willing and able to service the kids, and the DISD Board and Administration are not considering the schools and the kids at all. They do everything to argue to not service and bully parents to accept the unacceptable.
My question is if the number of folks laid off is 1100 and the average pay is $50,000, that is $55,000,000. Where is the other $35-90 or so million getting hacked out? Do we need a math teacher here?
Its about the dropouts
A month ago the district went looking, on a saturday, for over 23,000 dropouts. Lets say they were very successfull and got 3,000 students back in school for that Sept.29 head count for the state. The district lost 20,000 students. Now lets say that the average income to the district for each student is $8,000 this year. Thats a deficit,THIS YEAR, of $160 million. Now reduce that deficit number by the amount of new kids added to the district by Active district breeders, and you get the beginnings of the true deficit number!
The annual budget has increased all three years of the Hinojosa regime. Three years ago the district had in excess of 162,000 students. Three years later, even after absorbing Wilmer-Hutchins School District, DISD only had 143,000 students last year, and less this year!
So if we look at it from the right angle this is what is reality! The district has about 35-40 thousand less students than 3 years ago but the budget still grows. Thats more overhead and less income. I expect the overrun to be between $160 million and $280 million when the final tally comes in. AND THAT SCARES THE YOU KNOW WHAT OUT OF ME!
Not a problem
The district's enrollment is currently 158,327, a little above what was projected.
I think you may be confusing two issues. Many kids enrolled late this year, and there was concern that if they didn't soon enroll, the district would be penalized since the date was moved up to estimate state funding.
The dropout issue is a different one. TEA has stated that it will no longer issue waivers for high schools whose completion rates are lower than 75%. This would include most comprehensive high schools in Dallas, so most of them at the end of this year would be rated Academically Unacceptable or low-performing. Part of the dragnet effort was to get some of these kids back in school, but it is doubtful such a high profile effort will have a permanent effort unless other issues are resolved for the dropout.
So the current crisis is not covering another shock in terms of dropouts. Not to say there isn't some big suprise awaiting in terms of what really went wrong, other than massive stupidity, but it's not the dropout issue.
Drop outs not a prob?
Ok Jackie,
Enlighten us. 20 thousand dropouts is still at least a $160 million shortfall in income. 10 thousand dropouts is still a $80 million shortfall.
Now please be so kind as to explain how if the district attendance has grown from 143+ thousand last year to 158+ thousand this year, and using the $8000 figure per student figure, if the district gained in income $120 million more money than last year, wouldnt the shortfall only be $4 million- $8 million any way you look at it?
Otay
I don't know where you are getting the 143K from last year. TEA figures show 156,708 for 07-08; 158,814 for 06-07.
I think you are confusing the huge dropout rate that has occurred over the last decade with the enrollment figures.
DISD has hidden its dropout rate rather successfully for years. They have reported it in the low single digits. The dropout rate has increased lately,but it is not impacting the district enrollment in the manner you are interpreting it.
If all these children returned to school (around 6K are lost each year), where would we put them? If they stayed and took their TAKS, almost all comprehensive high school scores would sink. Hiney depends on the dropouts to increase the test scores of juniors.
Maybe these children are inconvenient. When Hiney blew up Spruce, he and Price immediately looked for a way to disappear ninth grade repeaters. They were simply looked as a minor nuisance to be shipped somewhere.
Since DISD may be judged an academically unacceptable district if completion rates remain low, maybe some attention will be paid. However, from the total chaos surrounding this year's mistake with the budget, dropouts are not on the radar. Keeping them in school requires that the adults in charge keep their attention and resources focused on the quality of classrooms, and in HineyLand, the adult drama and dysfunction always supercedes the welfare of children.
In fact, over the last 35 years, the adult drama and dysfunction is always a priority over the welfare of children. Maybe the entire model needs to be changed?
Wow!
And on top of that consider all the 3 year old transition kids the district is required to service, and be paid greatly for, to accomodate with the services required by the Child Find responsibilities. A million here, a million there.
Oh well, not to mention the collateral damage the system is causing by wasting the opportunity to help people become better members of society. The future expense of the homeless and unemployed. But then we can send them to Iraq in the service; That will make life better for them.
Many kids drop out because the school will not consider the needs of kids. It is not the poverty or language. It is the fact that the system is not focused on meeting the needs as it is required by law. The focus is to suck the money and cover it up. Pretend to do the do, until you get caught.
The district has too many problems to sort out. It is just amazing how America has become so incompetent, so this can happen. What is next?