Case Study: Lithonia Middle School

When you get to the issue of budgets there is really two parts to them. The general budget which is what the school district per say pays towards coaches salaries, transportation, and event workers. Coaches salaries are normally $120,000, transportation would be $50,000, and event workers can be around $5,000 - $10,000. Then the other part of the budget is the sports income, which is money from booster clubs, participation from other schools, and admissions, and it comes to roughly $120,000. Which goes out to uniforms, the athletic trainer, equipment and our participation at other school events. (Ross)

The federal government has attempted to slice into the Department of Education’s budget since it was established in 1979. The department was originally founded in 1867, but soon became demoted since the government was afraid it would have too much power. “In the 1860s, a budget of $15,000 and four employees handled education fact-finding. By 1965, the Office of Education had more than 2,100 employees and a budget of $1.5 billion. As of mid-2010, the Department has nearly 4,300 employees and a budget of about $60 billion” (An overview of the U.S. Department of Education, 2010). To provide some comparable insight, in 2013 the Department of Defense’s budget of $663.8 billion (U.S. Department of Defense, 2009).

As a comparison on just how much money has been cut from the legal aid budget we can look at the budget of Ontario during the years of 1996 to 2006. During this period education spending rose 20% and health spending increased by 33% conversely legal aid

spent about $8,000 yearly on the education of a third-grade child in a New York City public

There is strong evidence that points to a link between the way schools are currently funded and the disparity in student performance between the urban and suburban environments. The District of Columbia, which has 189 public schools, 5,000 teachers, and a Pre-K-12 enrollment of 79,000 students, spends $6,773 per pupil not including Special Education or English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). In comparison, Montgomery County has 190 public schools, 10,700 teachers, and a Pre-K-12 enrollment of 136,653 students. Montgomery County spends approximately $8,688 per pupil. It should also be pointed out that the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) expenditures amounted to $807 million last year in comparison to Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), which expects to spend an enormous $1.3 billion during Fiscal Year 2002. Without equal funding, the two systems already begin with an unequal playing field.

In the last budget, he said, an additional $850,000 was appropriated for education. And, while Johnson argues the better part of those additional funds went to private and charter schools, Landis said he did not have the numbers on what providers benefited from the increase. Although, he did say, no public school got less money.

If the current system not the administration calculates that the annually will increase as a chance to reinforce the district where it needs the assistance. While increased funding not necessarily equate to improvements in student performance, it’s funding and where it is clearly needs to be addressed. Ambitious effort to lift student achievement and, fundamentally, to undermine the idea of public

Bibb County School budget is designed and put to use to show the plans of the programs that are set for the year. The content of this paper is a general overview of the Bibb County school budget and what the main functions and the role it serves within the community. The key expenditures and how they determine public policy significances will also be identified. Among the other matters to be presented is if the budget of the Bibb County School has increased or decreased since last year, can the school still deliver service, are they still distributing resources sensibly and the recommendations for the future of the Bibb County Schools.

Especially for the Education portion, K-12 education expenses grew by 605 million or 8.8 percent over the prior year. Higher education expenses grew by 466 million, because more freshman in the state college/universities.

Each school district is guaranteed Total Program funding consisting of the sum of $6,856.72 per traditional pupil plus $6,641 per online pupil. In FY 2007-08 minimum per pupil funding for traditional pupils was increased to represent 94.3% of the state average per pupil funding less on-line funding.

In chapter 11 of the textbook titled “How are schools governed, influenced, and financed?” there was a section called school spending and could be found on page 354. The section talks about how much is spent by parents when enrolling a child into school, the average from 2013-2014 was just over 11k a year. There are two figures that are incorporated into the section, one shows how the average has changed over the last ten years and the other is the average spent by each state to educate one child. Each school/state has their own way of funding and to see what it is from school to school is interesting.

(Carter, 2011, p 23) The after-school programs are being eliminated slowly, which is a downfall for the students. Without after-school programs it leaves space for some students to fail academically. due to no tutoring, or it can lead to other options for the students, such as some students risk joining the life of the streets and becoming unproductive. Without the after-school programs, students may have too much time on his/her hands and this may cause negative results. The economy is focused on cutting costs within the school district, but it is going to take more than cutting costs. They should focus their attention on ways to save and spend effectively and efficiently. There are ways that the budget will work, once the government is able to make smarter decisions with the resources provided. (Carter, 2011) There is no doubt that the budget cuts has taken a toll on the school districts staff, by taking away jobs and eliminating extra support to the students. Many of the students would benefit from the extra help. (Carter,

The different groups of students also tended to have different graduation rates which included; White students with 84.0%, economic disadvantage with 81%, and students with disabilities having 74.1% graduation rates. One of the most important statistics that I learned about was financial data and how that breaks down into spending per student. Ashtabula Area City Schools is among the 20% of the lowest districts in spending per student. The AACS district spending per pupil is $7,866 (classroom spending is $5,268 and non-classroom spending is $2,597) compared to state spending per pupil which is $9,189 (classroom instruction is $6,192 and non-classroom spending is $2,998). After looking at the statistics about my school I was extremely surprised about the lower grades that my district received. When I was attending school I thought that we were a very intelligent school and we offered many different extra-curricular activities. I always thought that since we had so many different options and all the other students around me tended to do well in school, I assumed that our grades would be much higher than what we were

If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved. Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States in 2013-14 amounted to $634 billion, or $12,509 per public school student enrolled (NCES, 2017); however, according to the Nation’s Report Card, there isn't a link between spending and student achievement.

A strategy to address this issue could be for schools to highlight the importance of a having a budget. This includes what a budget is, how to create one, and how to manage one. Perhaps if people were more educated on these kinds of things, our society would be more empathetic toward those that are less fortunate than us.