Posted under Denver & Rural Schools & School Finance & Suburban Schools & Teachers & Urban Schools
Mike Antonucci is doing yeoman’s work at the Education Intelligence Agency, going state by state to update K-12 student, employee, and spending data from the U.S. Census Bureau. I’ve called on his helpful charts that show the relationship of pupil enrollment to teacher hiring, and how states (and even districts) are doing financially compared to five years earlier.
Friday it was Colorado’s turn in the spotlight. Antonucci came at the information from an interesting angle, showing that Denver Public Schools’ ProComp “performance pay” system has not deterred new hiring. He makes a few other valuable observations. But leave it to little old Eddie here to uncover a few more interesting tidbits from the data for you all.
First of all, the Census Bureau says the state’s per-pupil funding grew by 8.3 percent from 2006 to 2011 — just short of keeping pace with inflation. Yet as Antonucci explains in a newer post, school districts typically are not set up to absorb the occasional recessionary cuts like they are the frequent increases that outstrip the “marginal costs”: Continue Reading »

