OT- Tex re: edu
"such as the administrative bloat characterizing so many school districts"
Ummm- where do you come up with this "bloated administration" you keep referring to in public ed? In my state, every public school has to characterize every dollar spent to the state, by the state's defined criteria. The average amount spent on administration is between 5 and 6%...and woe be to the district that strays very far above that.
Our particular district has 10,000 students in two high schools, three middle schools, and 8 (I think) elementaries. and has a budget of around $80M. What do you think would be a reasonable salary for the CEO in charge of a business that size? I'm not sure, but the place where I work has a similar budget (albeit in only one building/location) and the CEO gets north of $300K in salary. Our district's "CEO" (the superintendant) gets less than half that. She's retiring this year at 11 years, a remarkably long run for a super, who usually end up "moving on" every 5 years or so- so much for entrenched administrators.
"except maybe in administration ... what on Earth are they doing anyway?"
Well, our "bloated administration" had to cut high school counselors to make the budget last cycle, and now our kids are having a hell of a time getting their required counselor evaluations for college admission on time. That's just one tiny example of what they do in "administration", since you asked.
I'd like to compare all this to the private sector, but the private schools don't have to disclose their finances to anyone. They don't have to meet test targets- they don't even have to test. They don't have to take problem students, or special ed kids, or poor kids that the public schools have to feed for free or reduced fees. And nobody seems to care how much they spend on administration or anything else.
"Somehow, we've apparently managed through our development of public education to increase the time it takes to instill less knowledge in kids ..."
You're joking, right? Or maybe you just haven't helped a kid with his Bio homework lately.
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