data to compare school districts (Orange: 2014, how much, salary)

[bradykp]

i found an interesting data set on an nj.com article today (per pupil spending, by district for 2013 and 2014 school years) and it got me wondering - is there any way to get data that is more easily comparable for district vs district comparisons?

for example, the budget for each district, being able to decipher how much district A spends on spanish, french, italian, etc. vs. district B?

also, finding out what's offered at district A vs district B?

[flyonpa]

I don't think you are going to get it broken down to the "Language" level, But I would think the DoED would have it by major category.

ie:

Instruction
Transportation
School Level Admin
District Level Admin
Supplies
Bond payments
Etc.

To get down the the Department level, you would need to go budget by budget.

But still would not get it to the Language level, but would get Foreign Language vs Math ...

[bradykp]

that would be useful enough for what i'm trying to do. more detail can be had later. the problem is - every school's BOE budget is formatted differently. Wouldn't it be cool if all schools used some state template that made it easy to compare apples to apples?

[flyonpa]

But I like oranges...

And grapes

[46H]

Originally Posted by bradykp

i found an interesting data set on an nj.com article today (per pupil spending, by district for 2013 and 2014 school years) and it got me wondering - is there any way to get data that is more easily comparable for district vs district comparisons?

for example, the budget for each district, being able to decipher how much district A spends on spanish, french, italian, etc. vs. district B?

also, finding out what's offered at district A vs district B?

There are too many variables to make an educated comparison about instruction based on money. Within a department you might have a lot of long time tenured teachers which would mean high spending in the department. That may or may not mean you are getting top level instruction. You will find good and bad teachers up and down the salary scale.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by 46H

There are too many variables to make an educated comparison about instruction based on money. Within a department you might have a lot of long time tenured teachers which would mean high spending in the department. That may or may not mean you are getting top level instruction. You will find good and bad teachers up and down the salary scale.

right - but that's precisely what i want to be able to get at. when comparing schools "per pupil cost", people like to throw out that my district is $22,000+ per pupil, and some neighboring districts that are "highly ranked" are closer to $19,000. i would love to see side by side comparisons, which you then could dig deeper.

for instance, let's say district A vs district B and we're looking at the spanish department

maybe district A has $600,000 in salary for spanish. district B has $900,000. and both have 10 teachers.

on the surface, one would claim that district B is spending too much on spanish!!!!! but maybe district A has 10 30 year old teachers, with a handful that have their master's degree, and district B has 10 teachers age 50+ and most have a PhD, with the rest having Masters degrees.

it would be nice to be able to quantify the difference beyond the typical "B costs more than A - B must be wasting money!"

see what i'm saying?

[46H]

Originally Posted by bradykp

right - but that's precisely what i want to be able to get at. when comparing schools "per pupil cost", people like to throw out that my district is $22,000+ per pupil, and some neighboring districts that are "highly ranked" are closer to $19,000. i would love to see side by side comparisons, which you then could dig deeper.

for instance, let's say district A vs district B and we're looking at the spanish department

maybe district A has $600,000 in salary for spanish. district B has $900,000. and both have 10 teachers.

on the surface, one would claim that district B is spending too much on spanish!!!!! but maybe district A has 10 30 year old teachers, with a handful that have their master's degree, and district B has 10 teachers age 50+ and most have a PhD, with the rest having Masters degrees.

it would be nice to be able to quantify the difference beyond the typical "B costs more than A - B must be wasting money!"

see what i'm saying?

Yes.

It would take a lot of digging and information to figure it out to that level of detail. School systems do not want that information out. That is why there seems to be a lack of uniformity in the reporting. It is also why school spending not based on reality.

Tenure really eliminates any chance of improving instruction and lowering costs and really messes up the ability to have meaningful comparisons.

[sj08054]

Originally Posted by bradykp

right - but that's precisely what i want to be able to get at. when comparing schools "per pupil cost", people like to throw out that my district is $22,000+ per pupil, and some neighboring districts that are "highly ranked" are closer to $19,000. i would love to see side by side comparisons, which you then could dig deeper.

for instance, let's say district A vs district B and we're looking at the spanish department

maybe district A has $600,000 in salary for spanish. district B has $900,000. and both have 10 teachers.

on the surface, one would claim that district B is spending too much on spanish!!!!! but maybe district A has 10 30 year old teachers, with a handful that have their master's degree, and district B has 10 teachers age 50+ and most have a PhD, with the rest having Masters degrees.

it would be nice to be able to quantify the difference beyond the typical "B costs more than A - B must be wasting money!"

see what i'm saying?

All the teachers salary is available. You will need to somehow link that dataset. I think you may be able to do it more on the HS level.