According to the most current statistics developed by the CT State Department of Education the Woodstock K-8 school system is in the bottom 3% (2.4%) and likely 4th from the bottom in per pupil spending.
Last spring one of our articles reported that Woodstock was 164th out of 169 towns in per pupil spending, in the bottom 3% of Connecticut towns (See this article ). Others at the Café have quoted this data either from the original source or from the Café article. The source of this information was a pdf document (See the source article http://www.opm.state.ct.us/igp/MUNFINSR/fi95str2.HTM ) from the CT State Office of Policy and Management. This was the only source of this information that we were aware of at that time. This pdf document states that the statistics in the document are not necessarily the finalized statistics. The Café article cited this reference correctly. The key statistic derived from this document was the finding that Woodstock spent $8583 per pupil in the K-8 system for the 2004-2005 school year (the most recent year where these statistics are available even today).
Recently a Café visitor (‘numbers’) began to question rightly the accuracy of these statistics because ‘numbers’ found a document at the CT department of Education that reported a per pupil spending of $8919 for that year and ‘numbers’ provided a step-by-step path to accessing that statistic (see comment 7 in the article entitled “Woodstock Education Funding – “Problem Statementâ€? Under Consideration by the Education Committee of the CT General Assemblyâ€? ). If ‘numbers’ was correct then this challenged the accuracy of the data that we had reported and others had cited. In fact if one looks at the data that ‘numbers’ is pointing out, Woodstock rates in the dismal bottom 15 towns rather than the bottom 5 out of 169 Connecticut towns (an even ‘dismaler’ number). ‘Numbers’ made the following statement as follows “…there is no reason to state something as a fact to make a point when that “factâ€? is open to question. It has repeatedly been stated on this blog that Woodstock is third from the bottom to make political points. Others have picked up on it and repeated it. Eventually it will be stated somewhere referencing the Cafe as a source. It’s always better to obtain the facts if you want to retain credibility in any arguments you make.â€? I greatly appreciated ‘numbers’ point and agreed with ‘numbers’ totally. ‘Numbers’ criticism is what the Café is all about, and this compelled me to try to understand how the data could be so different even though the end-result was not very different.
‘Numbers’ data comes from a document published by the CT Department of Education at the following URL http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/DER/datacentral/MultipleSearch.asp . This is an excellent source of data that can be parsed by enumerable ways. You can see the relative SAT performance for the Academy versus the other CT school districts (another dismal story). At the same time we were aware of a second source of Dept. of Ed statistics at the URL http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/#go . Note that these two URLs are from the same source of information. I examined town spending per pupil for Woodstock and the four towns worse than Woodstock in the pdf file and in the data cited by ‘numbers’. Between the three document sources of data (mine, ‘numbers’ and the older pdf file), there was no agreement on the spending per pupil for Woodstock and the 4 towns worse than Woodstock from the OPM pdf document, nor was there any agreement about spending per pupil among the 15 worst towns from ‘numbers’ document. I went back to ‘numbers’ URL link http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/DER/datacentral/MultipleSearch.asp and re-accessed the data. To pull up “district spending per pupilâ€? one selects the most current data, the year 2004, from the parsed information. This data is parsed from a master data set for the each of the 169 towns entitled “STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2004-2005 (school year)â€?. From the other URL http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/#go you can access the individual data sheets for each town. If you examine the data sheet entitled “STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2005-2006 (school year)â€? you will find that it reports the per pupil expenditures for the 2004-2005 school year. If you examine the data in the reports entitled “STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2004-2005 (school year)â€? these documents contain the per pupil expenditures for the 2003-2004 school year. Thus “numbers’ ” parsed document is reporting the per pupil expenditures for the 2003-2004 school year purportedly from the 2004-2005 report. But these reports contain the expenditures for the previous year rather than the year of the report given in the title. If you look at the numbers that ‘numbers’ reports you can find them all in the reports entitled “STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2004-2005 (school year)â€?
Something very interesting comes out of all of this. First Woodstock was shown to spend $8774 per pupil in the K-8 system rather than $8583 (OPM document) or $8919 (‘numbers’ document). In fact $8919 was the exact amount spent per pupil spent by Woodstock in the 2003-2004 school year. So Woodstock’s funding per K-8 pupil diminished by $145 from 2003-2004 to 2004-2005 school year. All of the additional towns found to be worse than Woodstock in ‘numbers’ document shifted to better in per pupil funding than Woodstock when the proper data was examined, except 3 of the four towns that were worse than Woodstock in the OPM pdf document. Union in the pdf OPM document was reported to spend less than Woodstock per pupil but actually spent $1609 more per K-8 pupil than Woodstock when the proper data was examined. Furthermore Hebron with the worst per pupil spending is only a K-6 school. All of this information is provided in the addendum below along with links to the actual data source.
All of the per pupil spending for the 2004-2005 school year was higher than the amount reported in ‘numbers’ data because ‘numbers’ data was for the 2003-2004 school year rather than the 2004-2005 year … … that is except Woodstock’s per pupil spending which was reduced. It would be expected that per pupil spending would increase each year because of inflation. Yet Woodstock reduced its per pupil spending in the 2004-2005 school year. This reduction in per pupil spending can be attributed to the limitations in education spending imposed by the Board of Finance due to their ‘interpretation’ of Proposition 46.
If the pattern holds true for all of the 169 towns of CT, Woodstock has slipped from the bottom 9% of schools in per pupil spending in 2003-2004 to the bottom 2.4%, 4th from the bottom among the 169 CT towns in spending per pupil. One of the three below us is Hebron, a K-6 school. Fourth from the bottom is not far off from 3rd from the bottom. I wonder where we stand this year? I guess the state will tell us sooner or later.
Addendum
The worst towns mentioned in all data sets.
Woodstock (Windham County)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist117.pdf
$8774 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8919 (2003-2004 pp spending)
K-8 school system with 995 pupils
Academy 19.9/24.6% SATs;16/20%1999-2005 average; 12.8% in math 2005
Transportation per pupil $448 (includes HS) state average $487 district type $506
Hebron (Tolland County)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist042.pdf
$7845 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $7174 (2003-04 pp spending)
K-6 school system with 1244 students
Watertown (Litchfield County)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist102.pdf
$8667 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. 8376 (2003-04 pp spending)
K-12 school system with 3556 students
15.5/23% seniors above 599 math/verbal SATs
Walcott (New Haven County)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist115.pdf
$8686 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8511 (2003-04 pp spending)
K-12 school system with 2966 students
16.9/13.6% seniors above 599 math/verbal SATs
Thompson (Windham County)
$9161 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8826 (2003-04 pp spending)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist094.pdf
K-12 school system with 1533 students
9.4/15.1% seniors above 599 math/verbal SATs
Derby (New Haven County)
$9973 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8785 (2003-04 pp spending)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist021.pdf
K-12 school system with 1485 students
Somers (Tolland County)
$9409 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8853 (2003-04 pp spending) http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist085.pdf
K-12 school system with 1743 students
33.7/27.2% seniors above 599 for math/verbal SATs
Union (Tolland County)
$10383 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8517 (OPM 2004-2005 document)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/elemd031.pdf
K-8 system with 74 students
Ansonia (New Haven County)
$8827 (2004-2005 pp spending) vs. $8216 (2003-04 pp spending)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist001.pdf
K-12 school system with 2714 students
Suffield (Hartford County)
$9090 (2004-2005 pp spending) vs. $8682 (2003-2004 pp spending)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist092.pdf
K-12 school system with 2562 students
East Windsor (Hartford County)
$9594 (2004-2005 pp pending) vs. $8801 (2003-2004 pp spending)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist029.pdf
K-12 school system with 1563 students
Coventry (Tolland County)
$9282 (2004-2005 pp spending) vs. $8906 (2003-2004 pp spending)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist017.pdf
K-12 school system with 2101 students
Thomaston (Litchfield)
$9263 (2004-2005 pp spending) vs. $8915 (2003-2004 pp spending)
(about the same size as Woodstock in population)
http://www.csde.state.ct.us/public/der/ssp/dist0506/dist093.pdf
K-12 school system with 1299 students
Remember “My Son’s Vallydictorian Speech from da First Graduating Class of Woodstock High -2010”
Our new High School was opened this year and we is pleased to announce da first graduating senior class from Woodstock High – the class of 2010
Motto – “We does da teachin ourselves and it ain’t costing too much�
Mascot – Swamp Pig
Nickname – Swamp Yankees
High School colors – brown, yellow, & green
My son’s Vallydictorian Speech:
“I does feel dat dis honor ain’t made me a man yet. My life’s work in da agony and sweat, not for glory or profit, is to create out of materials somethin dat did not exist before. So dis honor is only mine if I comes through life successfully. It ain’t hard to find somethin to dedicate myself for the money part commensurate (big word) with da purpose and significance of my origin. But I would like to do somethin with acclaim too. Dis moment is da pinnacle from which I might be listened to by da young boys and girls already playin da game of life with da same anguish and travail, whom is already dat one who will some day stand where I does stand today. …”
Pass the snouts…
I’m wondering what the percentage of special ed. spending is for towns that compare with Woodstock. My guess is that special ed. costs are higher in some towns that have comparable costs per student. If this is true isn’t the cost per student skewed? When we look at a set cost per student we are just looking at the number of students divided into the education budget, but perhaps there are factors that go into that budget whereby the actual dollar amount does not actually reach the individual students equally or at all. Factors such as special ed. dollars, debt/interest payments, healthcare costs, salaries, capital improvement spending. So my point is, the actual numerical cost per student may not be an accurate reflection on what each student actually receives and may not be a fair representation when comparing one school to another. To measure the success of a school purely by a dollar amount spent is like measuring the quality of a hospital by the amount spent per patient. It just doesn’t fly. Too many variables. What needs to be measured are outcomes. The SAT test is one example, another is CMT testing. Both important, but there are many other outcomes we can measure as well that my give us a truer reflection of our success. Examples could be student and parent satisfaction, college acceptance rates, teacher retention rates. I could think of a million. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating that we starve the schools and I am not part of a vast right wing conspiracy. I’m just brainstorming for what it’s worth.
The figure $8774 (2004-05 pp spending) vs. $8919 (2003-2004 pp spending) for Woodstock K-8 school system with 995 pupils. Does this student figure include the pre-K that is always mentioned in our school system, and do all the other schools you are comparing have pre-K in their figures also?
IM, It is unclear if the preK students are factored into the calculation. 995 in 2005-2006 Report says PK-8. The actual number of preK students is not given though. The budgetary numbers are for the 2004-2005 school year in the “STRATEGIC SCHOOL PROFILE 2005-2006 ” document. I think that the preK students are factored into the per pupil spending, but this is not clarified in the document. If you cut and paste the URL, you will see exactly what my reference is (if you have Adobe Acrobat). There is much more there than I have spoken about.
Help me understand something. It looks like we spend LESS on education, WAY less than the majority of Conn towns, and our CMT’s for K-8 remain good. Why is it that we have people on and off, year after year, hammering the BOE and the Superintendent, attempting to establish that money is being “wasted”? Seems to me the Board and the Superintendent are doing a GREAT job, especially under the circumstances. How much can a system tighten up? What constitutes wasteful spending? Seems to me, that there is more evidence of foolishness elsewhere in our budget than in our K-8 school system.
The calculation by the state Dept. of Education showed that for the 2003-04 school year Woodstock pK-8 spent $8919/pupil and $8774/pupil for the 2004-05 school year. I just made the same calculation for the 2005-06 school year. The per pupil spending for 2005-06 was (unofficially) $8896/pupil, a 1.4% increase over the previous year but still less than for the 2003-04 school year. So, in 3 consecutive years the pK-8 per pupil spending has in essence not increased even though inflation between July 2003 and February 2007 has been 10.7%. This suggests to me that there has been about an 11% reduction in “real money” spending per pupil between July 2003 and last month. Does this make sense?
I agree, the Board of Ed and Superintendent are doing absolutely fantastic jobs. I also think that another reason that our schools do fairly well is because we have alot of good families and kids in this town. I have coached kids for the past several years here and it always amazes me about how good the kids are. I also never have had any problems with parents. There are always exceptions, but talking to other people and coaches, things just are good here.
However, for the people that say money has nothing to do with academic success by pointing to Hartford. Keep in mind that our state’s best performing schools are also some of the best funded. Less funding means less resources which means less for the kids that need more help.
[...] These statistics were first reported at the Cafe in March 2007 in an article “Strangulation of Per Pupil Spending in Woodstock” Towns with the lowest per pupil spending in their public school system reported by the State: [...]