It's Friday morning September 22, 2023. We just got off the phone with the Evergreen School District HR; Evergreen Teachers Association Union office; Camas School District HR and Battle Ground HR. We contacted Evergreen and Camas to get copies of the newly approved teachers contracts. Neither contract is published and there is no target date for publication. Both districts said that once the teachers have approved the contract the district must then go through a review process to correct any wording and formatting. The proposed final document then goes back to the Union with any revisions and then back to the district, rinse and repeat until it's approved by both parties. In the case of … [Read more...]
Washington State K-12 compensation and other data
Our friend Jeff has a website we've mentioned before. Given the strikes at Evergreen and Camas and talk of striking at Battle Ground and other districts around the state we reached out to Jeff asking for an overview of the information he tracks. Following is that discussion with links to his website and data for your perusal. Note: Jeff does an annual update in December to capture the most current data published by OSPI. This data is entirely from OSPI. Jeff amalgamates and organizes it. So if someone claims the data is false refer them to Chris Reykdal the State Superintent of Schools. I have these charts already online for all 295 traditional school districts in WA plus most of … [Read more...]
More Students Are Turning Away From College and Toward Apprenticeships?
As a society, for the past 20+ years, we've pushed a college education as the ultimate goal. If you don't go to college you'll never earn as much money. If you don't go to college You are somehow less fulfilled. In the meantime there are a LOT of jobs that pay better than what college graduates earn. Many college attendees run up massive student debt. Here's some college graduation data: The percentage of college students who graduate varies depending on the type of institution, the length of study, and the gender of the students12345. The average college graduation rate at four-year schools was 60% between 2008-2020 1. In 2020, the 6-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time … [Read more...]
Battle Ground School District – November 2021 Levy: Fact Check
Well it seems that the social media services have been forcing a "fact check" on topics they deem worthy of attention. So, we thought we would take the same approach to the Battle Ground Levy. We'll link to the levy brochure the district created. Then we'll work our way through their claims and share our "fact checker" results. Most things are not black and white so we'll also explore the shades of gray. Here's a link to the brochure: https://www.battlegroundps.org/levy/ Before we get into the details please remember one thing. The last levy used a completely different system vs. the current levy. The old rate in the last levy was around $3.66/$1000. When the state raised property … [Read more...]
WA State School Superintendents and Asst. Superintendents total compensation report
Are Superintendents and Asst. Superintendents paid too much? Does the size of the school district make any difference? What’s the cost per student for the Superintendent piece of the pie? In today's article we share information from Jeff Heckathorn’s website. He’s assembled some data that you may find interesting. Specifically he looked into the costs from the leadership side of school districts. Let’s look at Superintendents: Total Compensation For Superintendents Vs Enrollments | The School Data Project : In 2019/2020 the highest paid District Superintendent was...Vancouver SD in Vancouver, WA. Slightly over 20,000 students. Certainly one of the larger districts in the state but far … [Read more...]
Per Pupil Expenditures (PPE) – the true cost of K-12 education in Washington State
There is a national organization called NCES – National Center for Education Statistics (https://nces.ed.gov) that tracks education data across the United States. They have a recommended method for identifying the true cost of K-12 education...and the State of Washington (OSPI) does NOT conform to that recommended standard. Specifically, NCES says there are four (4) cost factors in determining what the true cost of educating a student in public schools is: State contributions to a school district Local levy funds Local capital bonds Debt service costs Washington State (OSPI) only includes state contributions and local levies. They ignore capital bond and … [Read more...]
Washington State levy and bond data
If you love data and facts please add this site to your "must have" sites: http://www.schooldataproject.com This website was created by Jeff Heckathorn. Jeff has a passion for data and has been spending huge amounts of time gathering and dissecting data regarding Washington State school levys and bonds. We've been corresponding for months on this and today we bring to you some of the materials he has shared. Feel free to go straight to his site. We will provide updates and articles as we get them. You'll find information about those that passed and those that failed in February 2021 "special elections". This article will be updated as new information becomes available. Here is … [Read more...]
Aunt Becky and the ‘Underpaid Teachers’ Myth
This article was published at the National Review and written by Andrew G. Biggs on Dec 2, 2019. Do you agree or disagree? What the college-admissions scandal can teach us about public-school teacher pay. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) — a liberal think tank affiliated with teachers’ unions — public-school teachers earn, on average, 21.4 percent less than private-sector workers in other fields who have similar educational and demographic characteristics. According to EPI, by offering higher pay, public schools could attract and retain better teachers, leading to better test scores, higher graduation rates, and better jobs for the future. It’s a compelling … [Read more...]
Southwest Washington State: School property taxes vs. results – What happened?
Property owners have seen taxes skyrocket over the past 5+ years as funding for schools has risen. Two years ago the State legislature increased State school property taxes from $1.98/$1000 of assessed value to $2.89/1000 in Clark County. Add levies (as we go to press the levy cap has been raised from $1.50 to $2.50); capital bonds and other fees and service costs and many people are nearing their wit's (and financial) end. Today K-12 education consumes more than 50% of the state budget...and for what? Have test scores risen? (No they’ve declined). Have graduation rates improved? (They are flat or down). What measures of success do we see? In this report we share the following with … [Read more...]
Washington State School Funding data for Woodland School District: “More money does what?”
There is a LOT of buzz about funding K-12 education in Washington State the last couple of years. We’ve seen the State raise property taxes to better fund schools…with over 50% of the entire state budget going to education. We’ve seen limits placed on local levy’s with a requirement to ONLY use the funds for “enrichment” programs. We’ve seen the legislature debate increasing the $1.50 levy limit to $2.50 because most of the extra funds from tax increases went to teachers and districts are now running deficits and need to lay teachers off. We now see special “capital levies” to fund technology. We see capital bonds to fund new schools and renovations/repairs. So what has all that money done … [Read more...]