Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Arkansas' Broke School Districts

Why are Arkansas school districts having a hard time financially? Education takes up most of Arkansas' budget and has even gotten a good portion of the state surplus. Schools keep asking for more money, we give it to them and they turn around and ask for more. Why isn't possible to find out how and where the money is spent? For school districts to keep being financially distressed there has to be some management issues. Earlier this year the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had an article about coaches salaries. I bet none of the school districts made any changes in regards to the excessive salaries of some coaches. An editorial suggest fewer school districts.
Like cutting the number of school districts in this relatively small state to a manageable number. Say, to 75—one for each county.

Yeah, that might work in some places, but not all. I'm not particularly keen because that would probably close a number of schools causing many students to endure long bus rides. I did that for 4 years, 2 hours a day. I consider that cruel and unusual punishment to the children. Adding more and longer bus runs also means a big gas bill. At the gas prices today, that's going to eat up a school's budget really fast.
What ever the Department of Education and the school districts are doing now, it isn't working. Some one really needs to take an in depth look at were the Education money is being spent from the administration of the Department of Education to the individual school districts.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

declining home values mean reductions to the millage revenues that fund districts. Financial woes are exacerbated by inflation.

Anonymous said...

You have asked a question that needs to be asked. We keep giving more and more money to schools, but it is never enough. However, the question also needs to be asked, "Are we getting our money's worth out of this?"

If one looks at the coaches salaries, then one also needs to look at the Superintendent's salaries.

We lower the standards, then proclaim that the standards are being passed. The Legislature passes more bills, takes more control from the local district, and then boasts that they are improving education. All the legislature does is to assign more and more hoops for the teachers to jump through to keep their jobs.

What has happened is that they have removed much of the responsibility of raising the kids from the parents and have placed it at the teachers, and have held them responsible for the results.