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Re #1) I was a school board member and did exhaustive analysis of our budget. For primary education through high school, admin is NOT the root cause. If you t

Re #1) I was a school board member and did exhaustive analysis of our budget. For primary education through high school, admin is NOT the root cause. If you take any school budget, and strip away everything that is not an actual classroom teacher, you will find that ~1/3 or less goes to "frontline" teaching costs. Another 1/3 goes to special ed and all that is attendant with that. I mean, my district BOUGHT a car and hired a FULLTIME driver for one student who had to be taken to special programs. You have 1:1 class aids for many kids. Special ed is < 10% of kids, and even then the huge costs add up for the 1%. This is a massively subscale operation where every school is legally obligated to deliver services. Then you have the last 1/3 which is everything else. Food, facilities, sports, admin, transportation, etc. Admin is actually a leaner slice than most unless you are getting into really small schools where you have a principal on top of the teachers and that adds significant salary. In bigger schools this fades away with scale.

treeman79 4y ago
Wife often gets kids who need to be in special Ed. Takes a few weeks or more. Basically most of her time is spent dealing with the one kid. Or the aftermath. Not fun calling parents telling them that Susan is bleeding from a thrown chair. Of John was assaulted in the bathroom. Lots of time spent chasing kid when he runs away. Never mind her own wounds. These are kindergartners. This year She’s currently has 2 full time aids for basically 2 kids. She only got the aids because she threatened to quit on the spot. She deals with other 22 kids. Pay is crap.
- notch656a 4y ago
  That and the special ed kids get a high allotment of cash vs regular student. In effect, the normal kid is robbed by the special ed kid who gets disproportional budget per capita. A lot of time and talk gets spent about equity between poor and rich kids, or white and black kids, but you rarely see talk of normalizing the spending differential between special and gen pop.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    Somehow, in the US government it's only "benefits" that are considered. "Cost" never is. As I said elsewhere, I defy anyone to claim that Finland doesn't care about kids' special needs. They have the best education in the world. What percent do they spend on it?
    - poopypoopington 4y ago
      Why don't you find out and share with us rather than just asking questions and having others do the work for you. If Finland is really significant to this debate then share some data.
      - Cupertino95014 4y ago
        > Why don't you find out and share with us because it's hard to get, poopy. Even for the US. I can find their total spending & their general policies on special ed (which I did share), but not that. On the other hand, we do have some Finnish people on HN, so maybe they know. > If Finland is really significant to this debate If? They have what's generally considered the best education in the world.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
Good data, but it's static. How has it changed over the last, say, 30 years? I'm guessing "special ed" costs have increased the most. Why is that?
- varjag 4y ago
  The society used to care a lot less about special needs people.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    There's a finite amount of tax money available, so disproportionately allotment to a few special children effectively robs the other children of resources.
    - spoils19 4y ago
      Agreed. We also have to consider the comparative ROI.
      - meetingthrower 4y ago
        This data is REALLY hard to get. For me to do it, I had to go line by line through the budget. For example, all the classroom aids are typically assigned as teaching costs. But the reality is that they are assigned to individual students with IEPs (individual education plans), ergo, they should be categorized as special ed. Same thing in pulling out transportation. Or tuition to other districts. Admin dealing with special ed grants and recordkeeping. It goes on and on...
        Cupertino95014 4y ago
        It IS hard to get, and that's why the former school board member's estimate is valuable.
      - bena 4y ago
        Education and social services are one of the areas where we really shouldn't be leaning that hard on ROI. The return is a well taken care of populace. Yes, it may cost, but we pay that cost because we're not assholes.
azinman2 4y ago
You say that like we’re overspending on spending ed. I don’t understand that position. Of course they require more resources than the average student - they’re special cases, literally! To take that away would be devastating for society’s most vulnerable, as most parents aren’t equipped with the skills or resources to be able to do any different with their children. Some cases are extreme. Should we just let them either fail regular classes many years over or become extremely disruptive? How is that good for anyone? It’s easy to say X is expensive or Y takes up Z part of the budget. We saw a lot of that with the whole defund the police movement. But no one asks what should X cost? Maybe it’s already at the required level, or even less, despite it being such a large percentage of the budget?
- mjevans 4y ago
  Speculation: Maybe they aren't funded from a distinct resource pool and are instead assumed to be a percentage of the whole that is too small to care about. However over the years the number or cost of providing service has gone up to the point where the current expectations are an undue burden on the rest of the group. If that is the case then the funding should be split off at the source into it's own portion and receive clearer representation in funding deciding bodies.
- meetingthrower 4y ago
  It's said without (much) judgement. In the abstract, it seems exactly right to spend on it. But the reality is it a) very expensive and b) very disruptive. As some siblings mention, you will often have a class with 3-4 adults, only one of which is a teacher. And then several students who (through no fault of their own) can barely hold it together. For the 90% of kids in class, this is not helpful. And distributing it amongst many classes vs a more centralized special ed delivery system compounds the cost. We have aggressively used the school system as a distribution point of social services. Again, this seems logical. But this takes focus away from what the main intent is for the school system. There are pros and cons to this approach. I don't exactly know the answer, but instead of blaming administrators or teachers, we should be looking at what else we are asking schools to do besides educate. I know personally that the principals and superintendents spent less than 20% of their time thinking about how to make education better for the 90%.
joe_the_user 4y ago
I taught in Oakland, CA thirty years ago as a substitute, so I saw a variety of schools. I saw the corrupt administrators in certain schools effectively diverting funds for things like special education by hiring their friends for the well-paid jobs like special ed and resource specialist and then calling a substitute (me) to actually do the job. And that isn't saying this always happens (I imagine the smaller suburban schools with people involved would have less of this). But the existence of these special programs present a great opportunity for graft and so there's incentive to avoid making special education at all efficient.
jedberg 4y ago
I read a book a while back whose main argument was that we spend so much on the bottom 1% (special ed), why aren't we spending an equal amount on the top 1%? Why don't the smartest kids get one on one instruction and special resources that no one else gets? To be fair the author was fairly balanced and presented the arguments against, such as that they tend to come from wealthier families that can provide that support, that they will be fine on their own without it whereas the bottom 1% need the support, and so on. But it was an interesting thought experiment none the less. What would our society look like if we spent as much on the top 1% of students as the bottom? Or do we already via college education?
- notch656a 4y ago
  Some of it may be crab mentality. No matter how much you spend on some (but not all) special ed kids, there's no worry they will academically surpass the majority of students. So there's no fear from parents that the spending will mean their own kid gets dragged further down the pecking order. Spending for gifted children means putting other kids even higher up the pecking order than their own average kid. Who wants to spend a bunch of money to watch their kid get left further behind the front of the pack?
specialist 4y ago
Which 1/3rd pays for textbooks (curriculum) and testing? Both are total grifts. I'd rather that money went to teachers.

treeman79 4y ago

Wife often gets kids who need to be in special Ed. Takes a few weeks or more. Basically most of her time is spent dealing with the one kid. Or the aftermath. Not fun calling parents telling them that Susan is bleeding from a thrown chair. Of John was assaulted in the bathroom. Lots of time spent chasing kid when he runs away. Never mind her own wounds. These are kindergartners. This year She’s currently has 2 full time aids for basically 2 kids. She only got the aids because she threatened to quit on the spot. She deals with other 22 kids. Pay is crap.

notch656a 4y ago
That and the special ed kids get a high allotment of cash vs regular student. In effect, the normal kid is robbed by the special ed kid who gets disproportional budget per capita. A lot of time and talk gets spent about equity between poor and rich kids, or white and black kids, but you rarely see talk of normalizing the spending differential between special and gen pop.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  Somehow, in the US government it's only "benefits" that are considered. "Cost" never is. As I said elsewhere, I defy anyone to claim that Finland doesn't care about kids' special needs. They have the best education in the world. What percent do they spend on it?
  - poopypoopington 4y ago
    Why don't you find out and share with us rather than just asking questions and having others do the work for you. If Finland is really significant to this debate then share some data.
    - Cupertino95014 4y ago
      > Why don't you find out and share with us because it's hard to get, poopy. Even for the US. I can find their total spending & their general policies on special ed (which I did share), but not that. On the other hand, we do have some Finnish people on HN, so maybe they know. > If Finland is really significant to this debate If? They have what's generally considered the best education in the world.

Cupertino95014 4y ago

Good data, but it's static. How has it changed over the last, say, 30 years? I'm guessing "special ed" costs have increased the most. Why is that?

varjag 4y ago
The society used to care a lot less about special needs people.
- notch656a 4y ago
  There's a finite amount of tax money available, so disproportionately allotment to a few special children effectively robs the other children of resources.
  - spoils19 4y ago
    Agreed. We also have to consider the comparative ROI.
    - meetingthrower 4y ago
      This data is REALLY hard to get. For me to do it, I had to go line by line through the budget. For example, all the classroom aids are typically assigned as teaching costs. But the reality is that they are assigned to individual students with IEPs (individual education plans), ergo, they should be categorized as special ed. Same thing in pulling out transportation. Or tuition to other districts. Admin dealing with special ed grants and recordkeeping. It goes on and on...
      - Cupertino95014 4y ago
        It IS hard to get, and that's why the former school board member's estimate is valuable.
    - bena 4y ago
      Education and social services are one of the areas where we really shouldn't be leaning that hard on ROI. The return is a well taken care of populace. Yes, it may cost, but we pay that cost because we're not assholes.

azinman2 4y ago

You say that like we’re overspending on spending ed. I don’t understand that position. Of course they require more resources than the average student - they’re special cases, literally! To take that away would be devastating for society’s most vulnerable, as most parents aren’t equipped with the skills or resources to be able to do any different with their children. Some cases are extreme. Should we just let them either fail regular classes many years over or become extremely disruptive? How is that good for anyone? It’s easy to say X is expensive or Y takes up Z part of the budget. We saw a lot of that with the whole defund the police movement. But no one asks what should X cost? Maybe it’s already at the required level, or even less, despite it being such a large percentage of the budget?

mjevans 4y ago
Speculation: Maybe they aren't funded from a distinct resource pool and are instead assumed to be a percentage of the whole that is too small to care about. However over the years the number or cost of providing service has gone up to the point where the current expectations are an undue burden on the rest of the group. If that is the case then the funding should be split off at the source into it's own portion and receive clearer representation in funding deciding bodies.
meetingthrower 4y ago
It's said without (much) judgement. In the abstract, it seems exactly right to spend on it. But the reality is it a) very expensive and b) very disruptive. As some siblings mention, you will often have a class with 3-4 adults, only one of which is a teacher. And then several students who (through no fault of their own) can barely hold it together. For the 90% of kids in class, this is not helpful. And distributing it amongst many classes vs a more centralized special ed delivery system compounds the cost. We have aggressively used the school system as a distribution point of social services. Again, this seems logical. But this takes focus away from what the main intent is for the school system. There are pros and cons to this approach. I don't exactly know the answer, but instead of blaming administrators or teachers, we should be looking at what else we are asking schools to do besides educate. I know personally that the principals and superintendents spent less than 20% of their time thinking about how to make education better for the 90%.

joe_the_user 4y ago

I taught in Oakland, CA thirty years ago as a substitute, so I saw a variety of schools. I saw the corrupt administrators in certain schools effectively diverting funds for things like special education by hiring their friends for the well-paid jobs like special ed and resource specialist and then calling a substitute (me) to actually do the job. And that isn't saying this always happens (I imagine the smaller suburban schools with people involved would have less of this). But the existence of these special programs present a great opportunity for graft and so there's incentive to avoid making special education at all efficient.

jedberg 4y ago

I read a book a while back whose main argument was that we spend so much on the bottom 1% (special ed), why aren't we spending an equal amount on the top 1%? Why don't the smartest kids get one on one instruction and special resources that no one else gets? To be fair the author was fairly balanced and presented the arguments against, such as that they tend to come from wealthier families that can provide that support, that they will be fine on their own without it whereas the bottom 1% need the support, and so on. But it was an interesting thought experiment none the less. What would our society look like if we spent as much on the top 1% of students as the bottom? Or do we already via college education?

notch656a 4y ago
Some of it may be crab mentality. No matter how much you spend on some (but not all) special ed kids, there's no worry they will academically surpass the majority of students. So there's no fear from parents that the spending will mean their own kid gets dragged further down the pecking order. Spending for gifted children means putting other kids even higher up the pecking order than their own average kid. Who wants to spend a bunch of money to watch their kid get left further behind the front of the pack?

specialist 4y ago

Which 1/3rd pays for textbooks (curriculum) and testing? Both are total grifts. I'd rather that money went to teachers.