Jackson Jambalaya

Student enrollment went down, they didn't adjust their budget accordingly, now they have a shortfall. Next.

So JPS spent 7,000,000 more out of the general fund in 2015 than in 2014 but spent less on per student in 2015 than in 2014. Any idea where that extra 7,000,000 went ? I'm not saying it was inappropriately spent. Just curious where the extra $ went.

Does anyone know what is spent per student in passing districts like Desoto County, Lee County/Tupelo, Madison County, or other passing districts ? I seem to recall a prior comparison that showed most of the passing districts spent a good bit less per student but with much better results. I'm curious why JPS spends so much more per student than other districts.(No need for speculation and unfounded rumors like payoffs, etc. I'm looking for real facts on how/where more is spent per student.)Seems like JPS would be wise to look at the passing districts who spend less to help JPS figure out where it could cut more and save more.

@Kingfish,

Are you suggesting that since enrollment went down over the last 10 years, that spending should have gone down? Have you thought about cost adjustments? The cost of teaching the types of students JPS has to teach may have gone up, even as enrollment went down. Costs are affected by more variables than simple enrollment.

Also, are you suggesting that the spending levels in JPS point to the leadership in JPS has been inefficient in spending? If there was different leadership, say the administrators in Clinton and Madison, then the spending would be less? What would you base that on? The student population in Madison or Clinton is vastly different, in size, needs, and available in house resources, than in Jackson. If it were this simple to run JPS, don't you think that a solution would have been had at this point? Ask any administrator in those suburbs how would they run JPS or if they would like to run a school or the entire JPS district and see what they say.

Better yet, show them these audits and let them point out to you the frivolous or inefficient spending that you wouldn't see in other districts. You'd be hard pressed to find any professional educator that would say that, given the challenges of a district like JPS, the leadership is inept, corrupt, or inefficient. I'm not saying they are perfect, but I wonder how or if someone else would do a better job?

I am pressed to find a professional educator that is not a total fool.

"The cost of teaching the types of students JPS has to teach may have gone up, even as enrollment went down."

Oh really? Please elaborate. That's a really interesting claim/concept - one I have never heard mentioned before. Let's stay with that for awhile and explore.

I really like this statement from the Management Discussion and Analysis section, page 12.

The Jackson Public School District is financially stable. The District is proud of its community support of
the public schools.
The District has committed itself to financial excellence for many years. The District's system of financial
planning, budgeting, and internal financial controls is well regarded. The District plans to continue its
sound fiscal management to meet the challenges of the future.

The same goods and services that sold for $1.00 in 2005 costs about $1.23 in 2015. Another factor is that while I know nothing about the specifics of running a school, I do know that the Federal Government has gone insane with increased regulations in the past few years. What does increased regulation and red tape costs? I am not taking up for JPS, but just the change in time value of money alone is worth 23%. It would be interesting to see what a handful of cities, say Baton Rouge, Little Rock, Birmingham, Montgomery, Chattanooga, etc. spent on total school expenditures per student in 2005 and in 2015. That type of analysis would be a more accurate measure.

A friend who teaches at JPS told me they were 200 teachers short during the school year this year. This is almost 10% of total teaching jobs. He also knows of an algebra course that has not had an algebra teachers for the past two years. One could argue that no matter how much they spend on teachers, it is not enough.

They do save money on books. The district guru Cedric-the-clown-dresser gave up on books when he arrived. Now, parents can't look at a book to help Lil Jon.

How much was this savings?

It would be interesting to see what a handful of cities, say Baton Rouge, Little Rock, Birmingham, Montgomery, Chattanooga, etc. spent on total school expenditures per student in 2005 and in 2015. That type of analysis would be a more accurate measure.

Then conduct it yourself or hit the tip jar heavy to pay for the research. Just don't show up here telling us how it should be done or how it could be more accurate because all you're doing is trying to dismiss the effort.

I wonder about how the maintenance/repair costs of older school buildings affected the spending.
I agree the cash value of a dollar has to be considered.
But, I'm frankly more concerned about the lead issue
I know St A's tested their water, and perhaps while I've been out of town ,there have been stories on the lead issue that I've missed.
I want to know if the public schools have tested their water and the current state of this problem in Jackson.
The first priority now, it seems to me is whether or not Jackson's children are at risk. And, given the aging of pipes in the entire state , I hoped it'd be a priority for everyone.

May 10 1:51 said "Have you thought about cost adjustments?"

Did you see KF included charts for spending per student and instructional spending per student, then commented with admin cost % increase? Admin cost per student rose 25% while total spending per kid has remained relatively level and certainly didn't receive the cost adjustments you mentioned. In other words, the money was spent on employing adults instead of educating kids.

@ 5:00PM and all others who are perplexed as to why costs per student could go up, and yet enrollment decreases.

Say, for instances like with the Literacy Based Promotion Act (or "3rd grade Gate"), now the community is pressuring the district to do more reading instruction for 3rd graders. The district now wants to monitor the progress of the students during the year and adjust instruction to meet the needs of students as indicated in the progress monitoring tests. These tests require purchasing licenses for computer administrations (more money), a cost they may not have had in previous years . Also, since reading is now a premium, they will need the help of literacy coaches that may or may not come from the state (More money), tutors after school (more money) and administrative costs of facilitating these purchases (more money) etc.

Even for the people who are lamenting the rise in administrative costs while student costs "were level". Of course, one would have to determine what was covered under each line item (were costs for licenses for the reading software cover under student or admnin costs?). Also, new regulations regarding counseling of students required that the school counselors no longer be in charge of testing, and testing policy requires that principals and chief or core subject area teachers not proctor tests (for obvious reasons), therefore trading for other personnel in testing must be covered (more money), and since counselors council now, issues like professional development, discipline matters, etc. must be handled by administrators (more money).

So, It is not enough just to assume that human beings are simply economic actors that only require static inputs to achieve static, predictable outputs. Humans are irrational, emotional beings that have real, psycho-social needs that vary and cost. Children growing up in high poverty, highly transient communities have various needs that children growing up in relative wealth and stability do not have. Yet all children must have certain pre conditions in their environment to be ready to learn academic skills and subject matter (safe homes, sense of self worth and value, confidence in adults, healthy, safe schools, etc.) Yes, schooling is harder and more complicated than the political stump speech might want one to envision, but that doesn't make said stump speech more true or effective in solving our public schooling challenges.

Again, I note, what professional educators will say that the main challenges in JPS are merely about ineptitude and wasteful spending at the administrator level? Very few, and the few that would obviously don't understand the dynamics of schooling in communities hyper concentrated with poverty and segregation.

@8:57a - You almost had me until that last word - segregation. So if we mixed the black kids with the white ones, the blacks wouldn't be failing. Sorry, been there, done that, the experiment failed miserably. Why don't we just admit that the majority of blacks have different priorities than the majority of whites and education ain't one of them. Nothing wrong with that - lets quit trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

@9:34,
Segregation is not just about race, (though racial segregation is a big part of the problem), but also about class. Middle class black people are also leaving JPS. But, the answer to segregation is not about mixing "Black kids with the white ones", but about what happens when middle class white children are taught in schools in terms of available resources-human, fiscal, curricular, pedagogical and physical plant. The USDE has noted that there is a serious problem with the access to quality education that is lacking for poor and minority students. Experienced and expert teachers and administrators are not teaching poor and minority students by and large. If the schools weren't so hyper segregated, by class and race, more poor and minority students would have access to better teachers, principals, curricula, assessments, extra curricular activities, elective and honors/advanced classes, etc. Most teachers and administrators, given the choice, would love to teach in a more diverse school setting, not one hyper concentrated with poor students coming from distressed communities.

Integration was never about "mixing" different races of students, it was about the access that minority students had to a quality education. This access is too often denied because resources were and are distributed unjustly according to zip code. Communities are segregated. This segregation results in children growing up in communities hyper concentrated with poverty. This poverty created needs in children that are not/can't be met in homes, and therefore must be met in schools if the schools have any shot at educating many of these children. Resources are not allocated according to the resulting needs because of said segregation. This makes schooling difficult to almost impossible in many of these communities. For others then to look at balance sheets and surmise ineptitude of leadership and wasteful spending without understanding the needs and associated costs of schooling in these communities is an exercise in civic and political theater, not real, effective inquiry for solutions.

@8:57
Admitting that " the majority of Blacks have different priorities than the majority of whites and education ain't one of them" is erroneous and, I dare say, straight racist. It is not born in any real world analysis of the priorities of any group of people and doesn't lend itself to any answers regarding schooling in these communities. Its a simple assertion, which isn't true, which feeds into the racist ideologies that dominate civic and political discourse (and policy making) in MS. And we wonder why this state is last in so many indices of social-economic progress and quality of life.

Just like everything else. When there is a problem blame it on someone or something else. It has become common place for those in charge to avoid doing their job and looking for others to blame for their short comings.
When did the U.S. drop it's standards and morals? What happened to the real people? Where did this crop of losers come from?

9:59 rattles on with eloquence and sociology-textbook accuracy, if not plagiarism. I recon she ran out of typing paper before he got around to solutions. Her mission was to offer redress, identify all of us as ignorant and admonish all who have different thoughts and (gasp) solutions.

We should deduct $1 million for each student that is given a certificate of graduation from JPS that cannot read, write and solve simple math problems. Situation fixed, within just a couple of years, the budget for JPS will be 0.

@exjxnres
I agree, but why stop at JPS? Hold every district in the state accountable for the outcomes of their graduates! For every graduate that doesn't have a college admission, military appointment, job training program certificate, gainful employment (that pays a living wage thus requires specialized training), or start their own business within 3 years of graduating, cut funding by the amount that the state spent on that student's education while in high school (all 4 years). The pushback would then be that there are too many other variables that contribute to a student's outcome to hold districts solely responsible for it. I agree, so why , then, do we hold districts solely accountable for standardized test scores? Just as many variables that can affect a students outcome after high school also affect academic performance during high school.

To 10:07 Saying that " 'the majority of Blacks have different priorities than the majority of whites and education ain't one of them' is erroneous and, I dare say, straight racist."

Actually, your statement is quite racist. Caucasians and Asians dwarf Blacks in the numbers of math scholars statewide. If it is not a difference in priorities, then are you saying that Caucasians and Asians and smarter than Blacks in mathematics? Are you saying that number tests are biased against African Americans? Are numbers racist, or are you?

12:35,

You really are not displaying a good understanding of the claim that was made. To say that Whites and Asians score better in math and is quite different, and does not support, the notion that blacks have "different priorities...and education ain't one of them". The logical fallacies in you assertion are just indicative of the racist thinking that arrives a such a spurious claim.

-Test scores do not measure "priority of education" no more than zip code would. Just because a person scores higher on a test doesn't necessarily mean they cared more. Plenty of other factors come into play-Test preparation, testing environment, test taking skills of the test taker, prior instruction, background knowledge, subject matter, I could go on and on.

-You measure "priority" directly by asking people what priority do they place on education. Research study after research study affirms that black people place as much if not more emphasis on education as any other demographic group.

-What accounts for disparity in academic measures demographics (outside of the out-of-school factors) is mainly the access to quality educational experiences (you know, the relative lack of qualified and competent teachers and administrators in poor and minority schools, lack of access to advanced learning opportunities, science labs equipment, computer technology, etc.), not the "priority" that black people place on education.

The fact that you have assumed and generalized that black people just don't care about education, and see this as a sufficient explanation for the academic measure gaps really affirms that racism is born out of fear and ignorance, not observable reality and facts. Racism, along with classism, is probably the main reason why MS still lags behind the rest of the country in most social and economic measures. Instead of the state trying to make it such that it can run Jackson, we may need the Feds to devise ways they can take over the whole State. No way the political leadership, if they think anything like you, could ever lead Mississippi out from the bottom.

This state has imported money-grubbing big-spenders to run both the Jackson Public School System and the State Department of Education. Neither could point to Mississippi on a blank US map six years ago. Now they control a fourth of the state's finances.