Fund the Gap

1
Fund the Gap

• New Hampshire Citizens Voice Project
• www.nhcvp.org

2
Who we are

• NHCVP is a coalition of organizations that have
  come together to provide information about
  education issues and increase the role of
  citizens in shaping educational policy.

• Groups involved include
• New Hampshire School Administrators
  Association
• New Hampshire School Boards Association
• New Hampshire NEA
• New Hampshire Childrens Alliance
• Claremont Coalition

3
What we have done

• We conducted community forums over the past year
  to engage New Hampshire citizens about successful
  schools.
• Hundreds of people attended.
• We asked citizens what they thought schools
  needed to be successful.

4
What we learned

• New Hampshire citizens value their schools and
  want schools with
• qualified teachers
• facilities that support learning
• quality instruction and curriculum
• community partnerships

5
What we learned

• New Hampshire citizens want schools to produce
  students who are
• Lifelong learners
• Effective communicators
• Critical thinkers and problem solvers
• Productive citizens
• Interested in post-secondary options such as
  college

6
Next steps

• We took some of these common themes and compared
  them with current and proposed educational
  mandates.
• Many of the common themes are required by state
  laws.
• Schools must comply with these legal requirements.

7
Basic Building Blocks

• We chose four of the most basic requirements and
  examined their costs
• Staff
• Buildings
• Transportation
• System Leadership

8
Building Block 1 Staff

• We looked at the cost of staff needed to
  implement some of the most basic academic
  programs and services required by law, including
  special education.
• This is not all the staff schools need to
  implement all of the state educational
  requirements.

9
Building Block 2 Buildings

• Called Plant Operations Maintenance.
• Includes maintenance, minor repair, custodial
  services and utilities.
• Does not include major repairs or construction.
• Does not include debt service or other capital
  costs from constructing a building.

10
Building Blocks 3 Transportation

• Providing transportation to students.
• Includes all categories to and from school,
  including special education.

11
Building Blocks

• Block 4 System Leadership
• Includes costs for
• superintendent
• central office expenditures
• business services
• district special education expenses (not other
  school based costs)
• school board

12
Basic Building Blocks

• These four components are basic building blocks
  that are required by state law.
• They are bare minimum requirements that all
  schools must provide.
• They are not by themselves enough for an adequate
  or quality education.
• They exclude a number of important requirements
  of operating a school.

13
Excluded Items

• Books and other curriculum related materials
• Supplies
• Furniture
• School Facility Construction and Renovations
• Classroom aides (Non-special education)
• Technology (computers, software, hardware,
  required technical support and repair)

• Professional development for all staff
• Assessments (individual student assessments and
  state, district and local school assessments)
• At risk and early intervention programs
• School Resource Officers

14
Excluded Items

• All other extra-curricular activities including
  clubs and all after school hours (drama, band,
  clubs, activities and other things related to
  extra-curricular activities

• Special education costs beyond staff (programming
  costs, summer programs, evaluation costs, out of
  district placements, legal costs)
• All sports including costs for coaches, uniforms,
  referees, supplies and other things related to
  sports

15
Excluded Items

• Gifted and talented programs
• Elective courses
• School psychologists
• Vocational programs
• English as a Second Language programs
• DARE programs
• Summer school programs and staffing
• Preschool programs
• Driver education programs
• Food

16
What we did

• We looked at the cost of the minimum or the bare
  bones that a school would need to meet the
  legal requirements in these four areas.
• We included a few common practices of schools
  that go a bit beyond minimum requirements such as
  class size for elementary and middle schools and
  transportation in high schools.

17
How we did it

• We looked at state requirements from current and
  proposed minimum standards and from current state
  statutes.
• We developed a school at the elementary, middle
  school and high school level with grade
  configurations and enrollments near state
  averages.
• We determined the staffing schools might need to
  implement some core programming and academic
  requirements.

18
How we did it

• Professor John Romps, Ph.D. a Professor of
  Economics at St. Anselm College, obtained data
  and calculated the costs.
• We looked at state average costs to determine a
  statewide average cost for our four basic
  building blocks.
• We looked at the actual costs in these four areas
  of 15 schools (5 schools in each category).

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What we found

• There is a big gap between the actual costs of
  these four basic requirements and what the state
  provides to fund these requirements.

The Gap
20
Elementary School

• Requirement
• We chose grades kindergarten through grade 5 for
  our Elementary school example.

• Rationale
• All but 16 districts provide or offer
  Kindergarten
• New State Minimum standards will require all
  schools to do so by 2007
• Common grade configuration in the state

21
Elementary School

• 375 Students
• 50 in Kindergarten
• 325 in grades 1-5
• Class size of 25

• Around state average number of students in
  elementary schools
• Class size of 25 required by current minimum
  standards grades K-2 and 30 in grades 3-12.
• New proposed minimum standards will reduce class
  sizes to 20 in K-2, 25 in 3-5 and 30 in 6-12.
• This will require even more staff

22
Program Academic areasElementary School

• Language Arts
• Math
• Social Studies
• Science
• Music
• Art
• Computer education
• Physical education
• Guidance

• Special education and related services
• Physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Speech-language pathologist
• Media services (library)
• Nurse/health services

23
Building Block 1 Staff Elementary School

• 2 Kindergarten teachers
• 13 academic classroom teachers
• 1 Art teacher
• 1 computer lab teacher
• 1 physical education teacher
• 1 music teacher
• 2 special education teachers
• 4 special education aides

• 1 Reading Specialist
• 1 media specialist
• 1 principal
• 2 administrative support staff
• 1 guidance counselor
• 1 nurse
• 1 physical therapist
• 1 occupational therapist
• 1 speech language pathologist

24
Building Block 1 Staff Elementary School

• Teacher Costs
• We included the non-support and
  non-administrative staff in this category
  (pathologists, therapists, counselors, etc.)
• 58,672 per teacher for salary and benefits
• Average Teacher Salary for 2002-2003 of 41,909
• Calculated by the New Hampshire Department of
  Education
• Benefits taxes of 16,763 or 40 of salary
• Estimate based on experience of school
  superintendents and school boards.

25
Building Block 1 Staff Elementary School

• Principal
• Total Cost 81,150
• Median Salary of 64,920 for a K-4 Principal in
  2002-2003
• Calculated by the New Hampshire Association of
  School Principals
• Benefits taxes of 16,230 or 25 of salary.
• Estimate based on experience of school
  superintendents and school boards.

26
Building Block 1 Staff Elementary School

• Support Staff
• 2 Administrative staff (year round)
• 20,000 plus benefits of 8,000
• 28,000 per staff person
• Average based on experience of school
  superintendents and school boards.
• 4 other support staff (SPED aides)
• 17,000 plus benefits of 5,100
• 22,100 per staff person

27
Building Block 1 Staff Cost Elementary School

• Staff Cost Per Pupil
• Total of all staff 1,868,366
• 375 students
• 4,982 per pupil

28
Building Block 2 Buildings Elementary School

• Statewide the cost for plant maintenance and
  operations is 8.3 percent of total school
  district spending
• Equals 705 per pupil at the elementary level
• Statewide average as reported by the New
  Hampshire Dept. of Education in 2002-2003

29
Building Block 3 Transportation Elementary
School

• Statewide transportation is 4.4 percent of total
  school district spending
• Equals 381 per pupil at the elementary level
• Statewide average as reported by the New
  Hampshire Dept. of Education in 2002-2003

30
Building Block 4 Leadership Elementary School

• Statewide system leadership is 4.1 percent of
  total school district spending
• Equals 340 per pupil at the elementary level
• Statewide average as reported by the New
  Hampshire Dept. of Education in 2002-2003
• Called General Administration and Business
  services

31
Elementary Cost of Basic Building Blocks

• Block 1 Staff 4,982 per pupil
• Block 2 Buildings 705 per pupil
• Block 3 Transportation 381 per pupil
• Block 4 Leadership 340 per pupil
• Total per pupil elementary cost 6,408

32
Middle School

• Requirement
• We chose a middle school with grades 6-8.
• 500 students
• Class size of 25.

• Rationale
• Common grade configuration and student enrollment
  in the state
• Common practice in the state to have class size
  of 25 in this grade range.
• Class size requirement in Minimum Standards is 30
• We present the cost using both class sizes.

33
Program Academic areasMiddle School

• Language Arts
• Math
• Social Studies
• Science
• Music
• Art
• Computer education
• Physical education
• Guidance
• Family Consumer Science
• Industrial Arts

• Special education and related services
• Physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Speech-language pathologist
• Media services (library)
• Health

34
Building Block 1 StaffMiddle School

• 20 academic classroom teachers
• 1 art teacher
• 1 health teacher
• 1 computer lab teacher
• 1 physical education teacher
• 1 music teacher
• 1 family and consumer science
• 1 Industrial Arts teacher
• 3 special education teachers
• 3 special education aides

• 1 media specialist
• 1 principal
• 1 assistant principal
• 2 administrative support staff
• 1 guidance counselor
• 1 guidance administrative support staff
• 1 nurse
• .5 physical therapist
• .5 occupational therapist
• .5 speech language pathologist

35
Total Costs Middle School

• Block 1 Staff 4,638 per pupil
• (25 class size)
• 4,286 per pupil
• (30 class size)
• Block 2 Buildings 651 per pupil
• Block 3 Transportation 369 per pupil
• Block 4 Leadership 314 per pupil
• Total 5972 per pupil (25 class size)
• Total 5620 per pupil (30 class size)

36
High School

• Requirements
• High school grades
• 9-12
• Student enrollment of 600
• Class size of 30

• Rationale
• Common grade configuration and student enrollment
  in the state
• Class sizes required by minimum standards

37
Program Academic areasHigh School

• Language Arts
• Math
• Social Studies
• Science
• Music
• Art
• Computer lab
• Physical education
• Guidance
• Family consumer science
• Industrial arts
• Foreign Language

• Special education and related services
• Physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Speech-language pathologist
• Media services (library)
• Health
• Business education

38
Building Block 1 StaffHigh School

• 20 academic classroom teachers
• 3 Foreign Lang teachers
• 2 Art teachers
• 2 business education/computer lab teachers
• 2 physical education teachers
• 1 music teacher
• 3 special education teachers
• 1 family and consumer science (Home Economics)
• 1 media specialist

• 1 media specialist aide
• 3 special education aides
• 1 Industrial Arts
• 2 principals (includes 1 assistant principal)
• 2 administrative support staff
• 2 guidance counselors
• 1 in guidance support staff
• 1 nurse
• .5 physical therapist
• .5 occupational therapist
• .5 speech language pathologist

39
High School Costs

• Block 1 Staff 4,496 per pupil
• Block 2 Buildings 790 per pupil
• Block 3 Transportation 413 per pupil
• Block 4 Leadership 381 per pupil
• Total 6080 per pupil

40
Total Bare Bones Costs
41
Validate Compare

• We compared our numbers to the actual costs of 15
  New Hampshire schools (5 at each level) in these
  four categories.
• We chose the schools based on two requirements
• each school had to be the same grade
  configuration and around the same level of
  student enrollment as our examples and
• each school had to meet state outcome
  requirements as measured by making Adequate
  Yearly Progress in 2002-2003 (the most recent
  year that financial data was available)

42
AYP

• All schools and school districts must make
  Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP each year.
• AYP is defined by the New Hampshire Department of
  Education based on the requirements of the No
  Child Left Behind federal law.
• AYP is based on test scores on the statewide
  assessment test and on attendance rates or
  graduation rates.
• We chose AYP because it is an assessment that
  measures outcomes in academic areas with results
  that are maintained by the State and it is a
  state requirement that all public schools must
  meet.

43
Validate Compare

• The comparison shows that our estimates of
  staffing requirements and costs are very
  conservative and only cover a small portion of
  what schools require in order to provide
  educational services and programs.
• All of the schools employed more staff and had
  higher expenses then our estimates.

44
Elementary Schools

• Brentwood - Swasey School
• Epping Elementary School
• Gorham - Edward Fenn School
• Jaffrey Grade School
• Winchester Elementary School

45
Elementary Actual Costs Average of 5 schools per
pupil

• Block 1 Staff 6,960
• Block 2 Buildings 924
• Block 3 Transportation 407
• Block 4 Leadership 472
• Total 8763
• Our estimate 6408

46
Middle Schools Actual Costs

• Schools
• Hampton Academy Junior High
• Hooksett Memorial School
• Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School
• Laconia - Memorial Middle School
• Portsmouth Middle School

47
Middle School Actual Costs

• Block 1 Staff 5,786
• Block 2 Buildings 693
• Block 3 Transportation 318
• Block 4 Leadership 344
• Total 7141
• Our estimate 5972 (25 per class)
• 5620 (30 per class)

48
High School

• Schools
• Bow High School
• Claremont - Stevens High School
• Dresden - Hanover High School
• Jaffrey - Conant High School
• Pelham High School

49
High School Actual Costs

• Block 1 Staff 6,349 per pupil
• Block 2 Buildings 985 per pupil
• Block 3 Transportation 384 per pupil
• Block 4 Leadership 354 per pupil
• Total 8072
• Our estimate 6080

50
Total Comparison of Costs
51
Chart comparing our estimates versus the actual
costs of the four building blocks
52
Bare Bones

• The costs in our estimates and from the schools
  actual costs are only a portion of schools
  total costs. The average total cost per pupil was
  9,980 in 2002-2003.
• Our estimates do not include a number of
  important and required items.
• The costs in our estimates and the actual costs
  are based on data that is two years old
  (2002-2003) school year and current year
  expenditures are higher.

53
Our Estimates Are Not Enough to Operate a School
or Meet State Standards

• Books and other curriculum related materials
• Supplies
• Furniture
• School Facility Construction and Renovations
• Classroom aides (Non-special education)
• Technology
• All sports
• All other extra-curricular activities
• Gifted and talented programs
• Elective courses
• School psychologists
• Vocational programs
• Food

• Professional development for all staff
• Assessments (individual student assessments and
  state, district and local school assessments)
• At risk and early intervention programs
• School Resource Officers
• Special education costs beyond staff
• English as a Second Language programs
• DARE programs
• Summer school programs and staffing
• Preschool programs
• Driver education programs

54
State Funding

• What does the State provide in funding for these
  requirements?
• The State provides 3,390 as its Per Pupil
  Adequacy Costs.
• That means the State believes an adequate
  education costs 3,390 per student.
• The state also provides targeted aid as part of
  its adequate education costs that some
  communities get and others dont. Average
  targeted aid is 638 per pupil.
• Total State aid to cover the four components we
  assessed is 4,028 per pupil average statewide.

55
State funding?

• About half of the state funding comes from the
  statewide property tax
• We include that in the state funding, though many
  would argue it is really not state funding.
• Excluding it would decrease state funding by
  about one-half.

56
Below Adequacy

• Our four components are not enough to be an
  adequate education because of all the important
  things that are not included.
• State funding amounts dont even cover these four
  bare minimum requirements.
• A true adequacy cost would be even higher

57
Not enough

• State representatives have acknowledged that the
  state funding amount is insufficient to operate a
  school.
• Found that charter schools could not operate on
  their adequacy money alone.

"Adequacy dollars may be adequate for us to
comply with the Supreme Court decision, but
clearly it is not enough for any school to
operate on," Rep. John Hunt, R-Rindge chair of a
legislative oversight committee on charter
schools. Union Leader 10/28/04
58
Other Funding

• The state provides some other funding for
  building construction and very expensive special
  education placements.
• We dont include that funding because our four
  components dont include those costs.
• Most schools receive some federal funding. The
  average is about 4 percent of a schools budget.

59
The Gap Per Pupil StatewideOur Estimates

• Our estimated costs per pupil 6,153
• State funding 4,028
• Gap per pupil 2,125
• There are about 200,000 students statewide which
  leaves a total statewide Gap of
• 425,000,000

60
The Gap Per Pupil Statewide Actual Costs

• Avg. actual costs per pupil 7,992
• State funding 4,028
• Gap per pupil 3,954
• There are about 200,000 students statewide which
  leaves a total statewide Gap of 790,800,000

61
Graph of the Gap
62
The Gap Per Pupil Actual Costs Elementary Schools
63
Community Elementary Gap
64
The Gap Per Pupil Actual Costs Middle Schools
65
Community Gap Middle School
66
The Gap Per Pupil Actual Costs High Schools
67
Community Gap High School
68
Summary of The Gaps
69
What is your Communitys Gap?

• What are your schools costs for staff to meet
  the minimum requirements we have listed?
• What are your schools costs for buildings (plant
  maintenance and operation only), transportation
  and leadership?
• What is the amount of state adequacy funding your
  community receives? This information is available
  on our website www.nhcvp.org/fundgap.php.
• The difference is your Communitys Gap.

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What does it mean to you?

• You currently pay for the Gap with local property
  taxes.
• State decreases in education funding generally
  mean increases in the Gap and in local property
  taxes.
• The State is forcing local communities to pay for
  state requirements through local property taxes.

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What does it cost you?

• What is your local tax rate to pay for the Gap?
• Take your total Gap amount.
• Divide it by your communitys equalized
  valuation of school districts for local taxes
  available on our website at www.nhcvp.org/fundga
  p.php.
• The resulting number is an estimate of your
  local equalized tax rate to pay for the Gap.

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What does it mean?

• We think it means the State is severely under
  funding education
• What do you think?
• Does it seem fair?
• Should the state pay for its mandates?
• Is 4,028 on average per pupil enough to do that?

73
What does it mean?

• Should the State pay for staff to meet and
  implement State requirements?
• Should the State pay for maintaining buildings?
• Should the State pay for transportation?
• Should the State pay for leadership?
• Would you exclude any of these requirements?
• Are there other requirements that you think the
  State should pay for that we left out?

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What can you do about it?

• 1) Work with your local school district and local
  officials to calculate your communitys Gap and
  pass a local resolution asking the State to Fund
  the Gap.
• 2) Let your elected state officials know what
  your Gap is and that you want the State to Fund
  the Gap.
• Write letters or email elected state officials
• Call your elected state officials
• Visit your elected state officials
• Invite your elected state officials to a
  community forum to discuss the Gap
• Ask them what they plan to do about the Gap
• Our website has a listing of contact information
  for state representatives, state senators and the
  Governors office at www.nhcvp.org/fundgap.php

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What can you do about it?

• 3) Tell your friends and other people you know to
  look at this information and get involved.
• 4) Have a local community meeting, a house
  party, or a meeting with groups or
  organizations you belong to like Rotary Clubs,
  Kiwanis, etc. and show our Fund the Gap
  Presentation available on our website at
  www.nhcvp.org/fundgap.php.

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What can you do about it?

• 5) Visit our website at www.nhcvp.org and
• Let us know if your elected officials respond to
  you and what they say.
• Let us know if you calculate your Gap so we can
  post it on our website.
• Join our e-petition on our website to show that
  you support the State Funding the Gap.
• Exchange your ideas on our bulletin board.
• Join our email listserves to get information
  about what we are doing and how you can help.

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Contact information

• Our contact information is
• NHCVP
• PO Box 1803
• Concord, NH 03302-1803
• www.nhcvp.org
• sjohnson_at_nhcvp.org