Originally published in the Daily Press.
Would you spend about $10,000 on your child’s education? Per year?
For some localities in Virginia, that’s exactly what you’ll pay, if not more.
In Newport News, a $281 million budget was passed in April by the School Board. That translates to roughly $9,400 per pupil for the less than 30,000 kids that attend K-12. In Hampton, the amount of $191.9 million will be spent on 21,500 kids or about $8,900.
That number goes up or down throughout Virginia, but approximately $10,000 is the going rate per student.
To their credit, both Newport News and Hampton tightened their belts this year and cut their 2012-2013 budgets – as many localities did due to the lack of funding available from the state.
It was either that or raise taxes.
But the question remains: are taxpayers getting the most out of their tax-dollars?
Last year, 40 percent of the Virginia eighth graders tested on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science test and achieved either the proficient or advanced level, compared with 36 percent in 2009. Virginia’s students outperformed our national counterparts in 34 states and jurisdictions.
This is, of course, great news and great progress.
Yet, that celebration is tempered when you realize that in 2009, United States’ 15- and 16-year-olds who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment ranked 17th in science.
So, while Virginia’s students might be doing better in science than our counterparts in other states, as a nation, we could still be doing a lot better.
In another benchmark, Virginia is doing poorly when it comes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as “No Child Left Behind.”
According to the Virginia Department of Education web site, 97 percent of Virginia school divisions did not make “adequate yearly progress” in 2011-2012 toward the goal of 100 percent proficiency of all students in reading and mathematics by 2014, as mandated by the ESEA.
It should come as no surprise, given the staggering number of Virginia divisions apparently left behind, that Gloucester, Hampton, Isle of Wight, Newport News, Poquoson, Williamsburg-James City (WJCC), and York didn’t make the grade either.
The reality is that we continue to spend a great deal of time, energy, and resources on education just to achieve what seems to be average, if not below average, performance. And in a global economy, where competition matters, average performance is not acceptable.
Innovative public policy ideas such as merit pay for teachers, charter schools, or school choice cannot immediately be rejected by unions and the left every time they are proposed if we hope to improve. Cost-savings measures, such as more efficient use of space, shouldn’t be rejected off-hand either. And, quite frankly, eliminating school boards – who only have the power to spend, not collect, revenue – should be part of the discussion too.
In order to get better, we’re going to have to continually seek ways to improve how we educate and what we spend on education with our limited resources. That means looking at public policy ideas that might take some out of their comfort zone.
But beyond politics and policy, one simple way to improve performance can happen today: As students begin preparing for their final exams, take a few seconds to make sure they’re studying!
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