“With a budget-cutting session of the Texas Legislature approaching, and school districts under pressure to do more with less, a new report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs could help trim school spending without sacrificing educational quality,” according to the Comptroller’s press release today.
The executive summary of the report begins by noting Texas public education spending nearly doubled during the last decade, increasing from $28 billion to nearly $55 billion since the 1998-99 school year. Even after taking enrollment growth into account, spending per-pupil rose by 63 percent, according to the report.
Connecting the Dots: School Spending and Student Progress identifies Texas school districts that achieve strong student performance while keeping spending growth to a minimum. “What we created is a new kind of report that uses a unique rating system to balance student progress against school spending in an unbiased fashion,” Combs said. “The FAST system includes controls for the diverse range of students and the varying educational costs in Texas school districts — resulting in realistic and useful comparisons.”
Using FAST methodology, each school district and campus, including charter schools, is assigned the following:
- A rating of student progress in reading and math, measured using a value-added model with controls for the varying characteristics of students, campuses and districts.
- A spending rating, from “Very Low” to “Very High,” that rates the district’s spending compared to up to 40 peer districts that operate in similar cost environments, are of similar size and serve similar students
- A FAST rating, from one to five stars, that integrates academic progress and spending to identify districts that produce strong academic growth at a lower cost than their peers. School districts that earn five stars have a “Very High” student progress rating and a “Very Low” spending rating. Alternately, one-star districts have very low student progress and very high spending compared to their fiscal peers.
43 of the 1,235 school districts and charter schools the Comptroller analyzed received a five-star FAST rating.
“The ratings do not judge the relative value of spending versus academic progress,” Combs said. “Different schools have different priorities and constraints.”
Online tools also allow comparisons among peer districts using different lenses such as dropout rates, transportation spending or math scores.
Connecting the Dots includes a compilation of Smart Practices that provide blueprints for improving school operations. The Smart Practices were gathered by studying five-star school districts and charter schools, contacting other districts showing low spending or strong academic performance and consulting education experts. The Smart Practices include innovations in facilities, business services, staffing, technology and student services.
Connecting the Dots makes 20 recommendations to give school districts greater flexibility to enact efficiencies. These are a few of the recommendations:
- Share school facilities and services with community colleges and other local government entities to generate cost savings for all.
- Encourage school districts to use purchasing cooperatives and compare prices for goods and services with prices available through the state procurement system.
- Increase the educational opportunities available to students by reducing barriers to online coursework; and replace traditional textbooks with e-textbooks costing up to 40 percent less.
- Standardize reporting of campus financial data to help identify low- and high-cost programs.
- Relax the limit of 22 students in K-4 classes to permit an average of 22 students per class.
Connecting the Dots: School Spending and Student Progress is published in its entirety on the FAST website, www.FASTexas.org. The website includes complete details of school districts’ Smart Practices, all of Combs’ recommended education policy changes and all of the tools users need to compare school districts through the FAST lenses and create detailed, customized reports on school spending and academic achievement.