Is it only me who can't quite understand why our schools' operating budget in 2004 was $1.4 Billon, and now it's $2.1 Billion, with NO increase in students?
http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/documents/approved/2004/programs.pdf#xml=http://www.fcps.edu/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/webinator/search/xml.txt?query=budget+fy+2004&pr=public&prox=sentence&rorder=750&rprox=750&rdfreq=500&rwfreq=500&rlead=500&sufs=1&order=r&cq=&id=46f608647
http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/documents/advertised/2008.pdf

There has been no increase in the number of students, no decrease in class sizes, no big increase in any scores. So what did they do with nearly $700 million over 4 years? Why is it costing us so much more to educate the same number of students? Help me understand why the schools need so much more money every year.

It's called the VEA

POed Wrote:
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> It's called the VEA

Actually, most of the increase in expenses is going into school administration as districts try to comply with No Child Left Behind. By your rationale, teachers' salaries should have nearly doubled in the past four years, which they surely haven't.

Ha! The old "No Child Left Behind" argument. There has never been a redder herring. Increased costs are attributed to increased salaries and mandatory pension payments. You may not like "No Child," and that is fine, but please get your facts straight before you make statements like that! It really undermines any real arguments you may have against the program.

I found the posts on this thread pretty interesting despite the fact that most responses to the original question are simple blanket statements without any facts. I looked at the original question and thought that was a pretty big increase over a short period of time. I thought about the no child left behind argument and thought it plausible considering everything else has remained the same and this is the one thing that has changed in the education field. Then, I spent a few minutes googling and actually getting some facts. I came to the conclusion that the no child argument is complete bunk and a flat out lie. This may be a year old, but on May 25, 2006, Jack Dale, Superintendent of FCPS, participated in an online forum on washingtonpost.com and was asked a similar question. Below is the exchange:

Annandale, Va.: Please explain why you insist the budget must grow at 6 percent plus a year when the school population is declining.

Jack D. Dale: This year, there were three driving forces. One is the salary increase I proposed. With over 85% of our budget going to people, any salary increase will demand an increase in the budget. The second force was increasing costs for benefits and mandatory retirement system contributions to the state. The third force was energy costs -- diesel, natural gas, oil, gasoline, electricity, etc.

Another exchange:

Anonymous: Fairfax County is so very expensive to live in based on a teachers salary....Are any incentives being put in place to encourage teachers to live where they work or rather to help them afford to live where they work?
Jack D. Dale: In the last two years, I have raised the starting teacher salaries substantially. We also have partnerships with many banks and businesses to reduce housing costs, loan costs and other "cost of living" expenses for staff. Our web site has an extensive list of such benefits.


Not one mention of "No Child Left Behind."


I looked a little bit further and found that in the FY 06 budget, the county attributed $4.5 million to the No Child Left Behind requirements. This is a hefty number, indeed, but it only represents a paltry 2-3% of the overall budget. Hardly a budget buster!

In another article here -- http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2007/aug/07/housing-fairfax/?real_estate -- School Board member Jane K. Strauss (Dranesville) said that even without adding any programs, it would be difficult to maintain services. Nearly 86 percent of the school budget goes toward salaries and benefits, Strauss noted, and any cost-of-living increase has a large price tag. Enrollment is steady, but the number of students who require extra help because they have limited English proficiency or need special-education services is increasing.

It would seem the no child argument is a complete fabrication made only to slap around an unpopular president gratuitously. Look, it is pretty easy to find faults with the president without making up things!

Not one mention of "No Child Left Behind," eh? Did you bother going to the FCPS budget site?

"FY2007 Budget
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) School Board has approved a $2.1 billion budget for FY 2007 that supports continuing efforts to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), to attract and retain excellent employees, and to support teacher leadership that directly affects student achievement.

On February 9, 2006, the School Board adopted the FY 2007 Advertised Budget - This budget totals $2.1 billion, which is an increase of $184.2 million or 9.5 percent over the FY 2006 approved budget and $94.4 million or 4.7 percent over the current year budget estimate."

...My facts ARE straight.

The NCLB crap is just that. THe extra dollars pay my salary.

"Not one mention of 'No Child Left Behind.'" referred to the fact that when Superintendent Dale was asked the exact same question as above, he did not mention no child left behind. I would think that if no child was such a big factor and administrators love to beat it up, he would've taken the opportunity to do so.

I did in fact look at the website and that is where I found out your facts are FAR from straight. In FY 07 they did not attribute a hard dollar amount to no child. However, in 2006, they did when they said on May 13, 2005:

"To comply with the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), FCPS will hire 24 school-based instructional coaches at a cost of $2.2 million and will spend $1.3 million to place assessment coaches in all high schools. Full-day kindergarten will be established in five additional schools, including Centre Ridge, Columbia , Franconia , Gunston, and Herndon Elementary Schools."

That dollar amount reflects roughly 2.5% of the total budget for that year.

I looked and could find no other hard number attributed to no child. All your statement says that it "supports continuing efforts." It could have just as easily said it "supports continuing efforts in transporting your kids to and from schools." If you can find me a number that is directly attributed to no child, I'd be interested in seeing it.

In 2000, the average teacher salary in Fairfax was $47K. In 2007, it was $59K. That means teacher salaries went up 26% over 7 years - or about 3.5% a year (in line with inflation - see graph below).


http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:hv12Hs5ZlhkJ:www.fccpta.org/budgets/budget_2007.pdf+%22average+teacher+salary%22+and+%22fairfax+county%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

The overall budget went up 75% during that time. If you look at the budget, the biggest increases were for hiring "specialists" and ESOL. Why? Because "specialists" and ESOL are needed to help schools comply with No Child Left Behind.

While $60K sounds like a lot of money, in Fairfax County it is not.In fact, Fairfax teachers are paid less on average than teachers in Arlington and Montgomery counties.

Put simply, why didn't Superintendent Dale mention no child when he was asked the exact same question? Despite the fact that The chart you sent addressed 2000 - 2007 rather than the original question of 2004 - 2007, it was still interesting. As far as ESOL goes, there is an increase of 70% for ESOL students in the same time period you quote. Do you contend that without no child, there would not be a need for increased ESOL in Fairfax? It should also be noted that starting teacher salary went up 14% in the past two years alone. Finally, debt service accounts for approx $120M each year and we are being asked to incur another $300M+ over a period of years.

UN-FairTax, VA Wrote:
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> Put simply, why didn't Superintendent Dale mention
> no child when he was asked the exact same
> question? Despite the fact that The chart you
> sent addressed 2000 - 2007 rather than the
> original question of 2004 - 2007, it was still
> interesting. As far as ESOL goes, there is an
> increase of 70% for ESOL students in the same time
> period you quote. Do you contend that without no
> child, there would not be a need for increased
> ESOL in Fairfax? It should also be noted that
> starting teacher salary went up 14% in the past
> two years alone. Finally, debt service accounts
> for approx $120M each year and we are being asked
> to incur another $300M+ over a period of years.


If the starting salary went up 14% and the average salary has gone up an average of 3.5%, it seems to me starting salaries probably weren't competitive in the first place. Keep in mind that a requirement of NCLB is for "highly qualified teachers." That means school districts have to pay more to attract teachers with higher levels of education. That's not some teacher's union's doing. That's the law of supply and demand.

Yes, ESOL is part of No Child Left Behind. Students must be proficient readers of English in respect to NCLB regardless of where they are from. While immigration is driving ESOL, the fact that these same students are expected to be English proficient in less than a year versus a year or two in order to meet NCLB, this drives the cost up considerably and requires more ESOL education.

As for Superintendent Dale, I have no idea why NCLB didn't come up. Maybe you should ask Dale.

Thanks for giving us the whole story and the not so straight facts. Fairfax county did in fact publish dollar amounts attributed. Had you posted the entire press release clip or at least the relevant part, it would have told the whole story.

"The FCPS FY 2007 proposed budget, similar to the FY 2006 budget, was developed using a tiered approach. Included in the FY 2007 budget is a $102.3 million increase to cover basic school system needs and price increases, including rising fuel and health care costs; $46.5 million for a three percent market scale adjustment for employees; and $15.4 million to fund NCLB requirements, instructional programs, technology, and facilities preventive maintenance."

NCLB accounts for 7% of the overall budget. Not to mention the system receives $43.1M from the Feds.

ESOL was around long before NLCB.

>>>FY 2007 budget is a $102.3 million increase to cover basic school system needs and price increases, including rising fuel and health care costs;<<<

What are 'basic school system needs'?

How many more teachers were hired for the ESOL students between 2004 and 2008? Not many. Certainly not thousands of new teachers. We still have 27,000 employees and only 8,000 of those are teachers.

Why did we lose 300 students last year, but hired 343 new administrators? Why can't we hire more teachers, and fewer administrators?

I'm still not getting where or why we need $700 million more to educate the same number of students.

"basic school system needs" = teacher pay raises

UN-FairTax, VA,

Dude, I am right there with you on your arguments, but they would be stronger if you got the math right. According to FCPS, NLCB only accounts for 0.7% not a full 7%. Either way though Fairfax MF---er PWN3D!!! Unions, mandatory pension spending and an ever increasing debt service kill the school budget. Vote NO on the school bond! I know it will pass, but people should really think about it before hitting yes.

Actually, we don't have to pay more to attract teachers. Four years ago, when pay was considerably less, we had 13 applicants for every open position in Faifax county schools. I'm willing to bet that today we have closer to 16 applicants for every job.

How many other new college graduates make $42,000 a year with 11 weeks off in the summer, a week at Christmas, a week in the spring, personal leave days, sick leave and a pension plan that means 90% of salary when they retire? If teachers worked in the summer, their salary would equate to $53,000 a year. Other than engineers, which other new college graduates make that much money?

There is NO accountability for students/parents. If a student is expelled from school he simply goes to an alternative school. Transportation via TAXI or bus(at taxpayers expense). If expelled from alternative school, either attends half day in a trailer or home schooled (at taxpayers expense). Here's what it should be: If a student is expelled, the parents should be required to pay the educational cost difference (and it's seveveral thousand dollars) and all transportation fees. There's no reason the taxpayers should fund ad infinitum the education of students. All day kindergarten is expensive, too. If the parents want their child in all day, let them pay the difference. Reallocate their child care expenses to the school. An outside auditor needs to come in and assess the goings on and eradicate under utilized programs, worthless programs and the utter nonsense programs that are griding the taxpayers to a nub.
Parents should be fined for their lack of participation in educating their own children. If a child can't read or doesn't know basic math by 3rd grade, where is the parent? I'm disgusted at the coddling of students and parents. Hit someone in the pocketbook (other than the taxpayer) and things will change.

It is easier for a parent to blame the school system. Yet it is the parent who allows the kid to sit in front of a tv and watch MTV until midnight. Then the kid is tired when he gets up for school the next morning. The parent then gripes the school starts too early for their babies to be up.

The school doesnt help itself by the type of classes they offer. Instead of basic math, English and reading they offer why Debbie has two moms and how to feel good about yourself even when you are a retard. I have yet to see a kid working in a store that could make change unless the cash register does it for them.

I am sure teaching is no prize but you do get the summer off, two weeks at Christmas, one week at Thanksgiving, one week at Easter and a bunch of holdidays in between. Not to mention how many of us in real jobs get to stay home because it is too cold, too hot or it snowed?

Aside from the arguments above for increases in teacher pay, more administrators, etc. Another major reason is that the county is taking on more debt than it can handle. At the current rate, debt service will continue to eat up larger portions of the school budget. If you have a kid entering school in 5-10 years from now, your tax dollars will have been spent paying for prorgams started when a 25 year old was in school. Think about this when you vote on the bond.