Writing a blog is a learning experience. One of the reasons I wanted to write a blog
was just to get the facts out there. I
wanted to document what was said and report it in an unbiased way. And I also wanted to fact check items I
thought were incorrect.
After my last blog post, I find that I need to fact check myself. There were items I reported from the last
school board meeting that I made a cursory attempt to fact check prior to
writing my blog. Since they seemed uncontroversial and since I agreed with the conclusions, it seemed acceptable
to run with the statements I made without a complete fact check. I apologize for that oversight and hope to correct that now.
I want to revisit the items I referenced from Sandy
Student’s farewell speech. While I believe my notes and blog accurately reflects the spirit of what Mr. Student was driving at, I
have no way to reproduce his exact statements. I will assume any factual inaccuracies were mine.
The quotes below are quotes of me, from my blog, not of Mr. Student
directly.
As per Mr Student, the issues that lay before the incoming school board are:
- "The increasing rate of Special Education students, which now comprises 20% of the population and 34% of the budget
According to the State of NJ, in 2016, Evesham had 4,441 students, of which 1,048 were classified as Special Education students, or 23.6% of the total. By comparison, looking at surrounding towns, we are indeed the high end:
Cherry Hill 20.1%
Moorestown 19.4%
Voorhees 17.7%
Mt Laurel 15.6%
Medford 19.5%
Shamong 17.6%
In 2016, the Special Education instructional expenditures were 35.1% of total instructional expenditures. However, it is NOT true that the percentage
is increasing year after year. Over the last 10
years that number has fluctuated, with the most recent rate down slightly from the high in
2010.
It is also apparent that the percentage of students classified is
not increasing every year.
- "Enrollment has declined 1,000 children in a decade, but there has not been a commensurate drop in staff."
Both parts of the above sentence are incorrect. According to ETSD reporting documents, the decline in enrollment in the last decade is 655 students. Since the high point of 2002-3, the decline is 1,031, a 19% decrease.
However, as the chart from the 2016 ETSD Financial Report shows, there has been a greater percentage decrease in full time staff, both in terms of instructional teachers and total employees. The number of instructional
full time employees has decreased from 752 in 2007 to 495 in 2016, a 34% decrease. The total full time employees of the
district has decreased from 1,040 in 2007 to 780 in 2016, a 25% decrease.
- "NJ has the highest property taxes in the US"
This is correct. Below is how Evesham compares with its neighbors. These rates includes county,
town, school and fire department taxes.
- "NJ has 590 school districts. Pennsylvania has only 500, but has more public school students. NJ has to 'reign in home rule teaching'"
NJ has 590 school districts in the 2016-17 school year with 1.37
million students Pennsylvania has 500 with 1.76
million students.
And while we certainly should be looking at saving money by
combining districts, we can’t assume that the quality of education would remain
the same. It might, it might not. But looking at how PA and NJ compare in
national surveys, it would appear that students in NJ receive a better
education on average than those in Pennsylvania.
Is that the result of ‘home rule teaching’? I don’t know. But the question needs to be
asked.
In every I study I looked at, NJ ranked higher. (These were the top results in my Google search. I'm sure if you keep digging, you can find some studies where PA ranked higher, but they all seemed to slant towards this side of the river)
NJ 10 PA 22 US News
NJ 2 PA 8 USA Today
NJ 4 PA 10 CNBC
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I do agree with the overall point that Mr. Student was trying to make. We should always be looking at ways to reduce the cost of education. We should look at whether there is money to be saved by consolidating school districts, and we should always be looking at ways to reduce staff that doesn't affect child outcomes. But these things need to be looked at carefully, armed with facts and with the knowledge that there are multiple impacts of any decision - tax rates are one of them, but our children are another.