The very minute my Christmas vacation started, and I mean on the train on the ride home, I developed a fever. So while my family was out being merry and bright, I was home, bedridden. This was very sad so I decided to take the opportunity to crunch some numbers. But please remember, this blog post was written in a feverish haze.
One thing I’ve been hearing a lot lately, from disparate but not disconnected places, is about the billion dollar BPS budget.
A billion dollars! A billion dollars! BPS is costing the city a billion dollars!
Now granted, a billion is a big number. Really big. But what I wanted to know, is it an unreasonable number.
One thing that I noticed is that people who like to bring up the billion dollar budget like to compare Boston to other states, places like Florida or Alabama, where they are admittedly spending far less on education. I wonder how the parents and students in these states feel about the per pupil spending of their local school districts. Do they think they are being adequately funded?
Some of that can be explained by differences in the cost of living. But also, budgets are statements of values. And Massachusetts has valued and invested in education. And it shows. Here is Massachusetts’ performance compared to other states in the most recent NAEP tests. Even when you adjust for demographics, we come out on top.
This is important, because my fear is that with the governor’s rush to sell off commonly held schools to private interests, we are abandoning our values.
I thought it would be interesting to judge Boston not by the standards of other states but by our own standards. How does Boston’s education spending compare to the other cities and towns in the Commonwealth?
As far as per pupil spending goes, the latest figures from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website is in 2014. They list BPS as spending $18,318 per pupil. That figure wasn’t an outlier at all. In fact, 43 cities and towns spend more per pupil including poorer communities like Lawrence ($19, 672) and Lowell ($18,816). The real outlier was Provincetown. That gay little outpost spends a whopping $30,626 per student.
I placed all of the cities and towns on a chart so you can see where Boston lands next to other places in Massachusetts.
Now, the other kvetching I hear a lot is about how much of Boston’s budget BPS takes up. I’ve heard 40% but I couldn’t find it sourced, and I can’t remember who told me that number. It was probably some whining city councilor.
At any rate, I decided to compare Boston to other municipalities to see if BPS is taking up a larger percentage of the budget than what is reasonable.
And this is what I learned. Far from it. The state average for municipalities’ education allotment of the budget is 53%. Most cities and towns are spending a far greater percentage of their entire budget on their school system.
Now I need to mention it was far more difficult to find this data and the only place that had it was the Pioneer Institute when they compiled it back in 2011. I know we don’t see eye to eye on anything, Pioneer, but thank you for doing that.
In 2011, BPS was taking up 33.5 percent of the Boston budget compared to the 53% average of the state. There were 4 towns that spent over 70% of their budget on their schools. BPS was on the low end of the spectrum. In fact, there were only 14 cities and towns that spent a smaller percentage of their town’s budget on their school system.
Interestingly, the smallest percentage goes to Provincetown at 16% of its budget. How can that be? They have all of 120 lucky students in their well funded school system.
The governor’s home town of Swampscott pays 47.4% of its budget to its school system. And the secretary of education’s town of Milton pays 51% of its budget to the Milton school system.
I think the question isn’t whether or not BPS is spending too much money. I think the question is why do politicians not value Boston students? Because that is what they are telling us when they talk about the billion dollar BPS budget in awed tones.
What is Boston spending its money on instead?
Let’s start there.
Update: A helpful person who I assume wants to remain anonymous sent me a cite for the 40% of Boston’s budget. This is an interesting document. It is BPS’ FY17 Financial Context and Planning. It attributes the growth in the percentage of Boston’s budget to stagnant Chapter 70 revenue (money that the state gives to BPS) and the state not fulfilling its charter school reimbursement obligations:
Here is a table of the percentages paid by municipal budgets for education:
Provincetown 16.1 Tyringham 19 Athol 24.2 Mt Washington 26.2 Wellfleet 27.3 Truro 27.8 Chatham 29.3 Cambridge 29.5 Monroe 30.4 Orleans 31 Harwich 31.5 Tolland 31.6 Chilmark 32.5 Monterey 33.4 Boston 33.5 Nahant 33.5 Somerville 33.6 Edgartown 33.8 Royalston 34.2 Quincy 34.4 Eastham 35.6 Stockbridge 35.6 Dennis 36.4 Greenfield 36.4 Gloucester 36.8 Watertown 36.8 Adams 36.9 Avon 36.9 Oak Bluffs 38.4 Hull 39.6 Northampton 39.9 Everett 40.6 Melrose 40.6 Rowe 40.6 Medford 41.2 Egremont 41.3 Falmouth 41.3 Dedham 41.4 Malden 41.6 Taunton 41.6 Brookline 41.8 Mashpee 41.8 Saugus 42 Waltham 42 Nantucket 42.1 North Adams 42.2 Norwood 42.5 Pittsfield 42.7 Stoneham 42.8 Danvers 43.3 Newburyport 43.5 Rockport 43.5 Tisbury 43.6 W. Bridgewater 43.7 Arlington 43.8 Winthrop 44 Hadley 44.2 Peabody 44.3 Boylston 44.4 Upton 44.5 Salem 44.6 Erving 44.8 Winchester 44.8 Hanson 45 Whitman 45 Hawley 45.1 Middleborough 45.1 Ayer 45.3 Easthampton 45.3 Florida 45.3 Holbrook 45.5 Cohasset 45.6 Brewster 45.7 Alford 45.8 East Brookfield 45.9 Yarmouth 45.9 Woburn 46.2 Chelsea 46.3 Bedford 46.4 Shirley 46.4 Heath 46.6 Maynard 46.9 Templeton 47 Bourne 47.1 Holyoke 47.2 Hingham 47.3 Chelmsford 47.4 Lee 47.4 Swampscott 47.4 West Boylston 47.4 Lincoln 47.5 Marblehead 47.9 Wendell 47.9 Lynn 48 Needham 48 Ware 48 Wakefield 48.1 West Newbury 48.2 Agawam 48.5 Littleton 48.5 North Brookfield48.6 Rockland 48.7 Chicopee 48.8 Ludlow 48.8 Washington 48.8 Beckett 48.9 Weston 48.9 New Bedford 49 Norwell 49 Sandwich 49.1 Weymouth 49.1 Norton 49.2 W Springfield 49.2 Worcester 49.4 Southwick 49.5 Warren 49.6 Abington 49.7 Billerica 49.7 Lenox 49.7 Middlefield 49.7 Salisbury 49.7 Wayland 49.7 Belmont 49.8 Haverhill 49.8 Seekonk 49.8 Beverly 50 East Bridgewater50 Mansfield 50 North Reading 50 Otis 50 Reading 50 Monson 50.1 Oxford 50.1 Walpole 50.3 Plainville 50.4 Fall River 50.5 South Hadley 50.5 Blackston 50.6 Hopedale 50.6 Plainfield 50.6 Brookfield 50.8 N Attleborough 50.8 Paxton 50.8 Sandisfield 50.8 Barnstable 50.9 Burlington 50.9 Lynnfield 51 Savoy 51.1 Goshen 51.2 Warwick 51.2 Westminster 51.2 Spencer 51.3 Wellesley 51.4 Clinton 51.5 Dudley 51.5 Foxborough 51.5 East Longmeadow 51.6 Wrentham 51.6 Kingston 51.7 Milton 51.7 Mendon 51.8 Sterling 51.9 Randolph 52 Charlton 52.2 Gardner 52.2 Easton 52.5 Hardwick 52.5 Canton 52.6 Phillipston 52.6 Westport 52.6 Barre 52.8 Fitchburg 52.8 Milford 53 Newbury 53 Orange 53 Revere 53.2 Westwood 53.2 Andover 53.5 Great Barrington53.5 Hanover 53.5 Millis 53.5 Scituate 53.5 Amesbury 53.6 Ashland 53.6 Douglas 53.6 Marion 53.6 Southbridge 53.6 Groton 53.7 Montague 53.7 Palmer 53.7 Rutland 53.7 Fairhaven 53.8 Millville 53.8 New Marlborough 53.9 Pembroke 54 Manchester 54.1 Westford 54.1 Shrewsbury 54.2 Westborough 54.3 Auburn 54.4 Hudson 54.4 Lowell 54.4 Mattapoisett 54.6 West Brookfield 54.7 Williamstown 54.7 Attleboro 54.8 Harvard 54.8 Swansea 54.9 Townsend 54.9 Berlin 55 Braintree 55 Raynham 55 Marlborough 55.1 Tyngsborough 55.1 Westfield 55.1 Charlemont 55.2 Williamsburg 55.2 Millbury 55.4 Wilmington 55.4 Gill 55.5 Newton 55.5 North Andover 55.5 Southborough 55.5 Goergetown 55.6 Ashburnham 55.7 Bellingham 55.7 Ipswich 55.7 Belchertown 55.8 Freetown 55.8 Amherst 55.9 Franklin 55.9 Leominster 56 Lunenburg 56 Conway 56.2 Lanesborough 56.3 Ashby 56.4 Marshfield 56.4 Northbridge 56.4 Medfield 56.5 Halifax 56.6 Leyden 56.6 Wenham 56.6 Buckland 56.7 Dracut 56.7 Chesire 56.8 Framingham 56.9 Methuen 56.9 Topsfield 56.9 Uxbridge 56.9 Norfolk 57 Stoughton 57 Holliston 57.1 Peru 57.1 Hatfield 57.2 Plymouth 57.2 West Tisbury 57.2 Hopkinton 57.3 Hubbardston 57.3 Shelburne 57.5 Bridgewater 57.6 Chesterfield 57.7 Lexington 57.9 Holden 58.3 Medway 58.3 Merrimac 58.3 Sutton 58.3 Dartmouth 58.5 Worthington 58.5 Whately 58.7 Grafton 58.9 Lakeville 58.9 Cummington 59 Tewksbury 59.1 New Braintree 59.2 Sunderland 59.3 New Salem 59.5 Plympton 59.5 Dalton 59.6 Duxbury 59.6 Rowley 59.6 Blandford 59.7 Richmond 59.7 Wales 59.8 Concord 60 Dighton 60.1 Granby 60.1 Boxborough 60.3 Brockton 60.3 West Stockbridge60.3 Deerfield 60.4 Oakham 60.4 Sturbridge 60.4 Springfield 60.5 Lancaster 60.6 Shutesbury 60.6 Leicester 60.7 Bolton 60.8 Sharon 60.8 Wilbraham 60.8 Winchendon 60.8 Dover 61.1 Rochester 61.1 Acushnet 61.4 Essex 61.7 Holland 61.7 Princeton 61.7 Webster 61.8 Bernardston 62.2 Westhampton 62.3 Pepperell 62.4 Rehoboth 62.5 Wareham 62.5 Hinsdale 62.6 Groveland 62.7 Sherborn 62.7 Southampton 62.7 Northborough 62.8 Middleton 62.9 Petersham 62.9 Sudbury 62.9 Colrain 63 Ashfield 63.1 Dunstable 63.1 Chester 63.2 Russell 63.3 Northfield 63.8 Somerset 64.4 Granville 65.3 Montgomery 65.8 Stowe 65.8 Boxford 66.1 Leverett 66.3 Longmeadow 66.7 Pelham 66.7 Carver 66.8 Hamilton 66.9 Action 67.1 Windsor 67.2 Berkley 67.5 Carlisle 68 Sheffield 68.2 Lawrence 68.8 Hamden 69.1 Huntington 69.7 Clarksburg 70 Brimfield 70.1 Hancock 74.2 New Ashford 74.2
If we accept that the public education of children is a common good (and not a business), then the question of how much we should spend on it is a little less murky. What else would one suggest a city spend its resources for? Police and fire, roads and transportation, public parks & recreation, libraries and not much else. (Not the Olympics of 2024 or an Indy Road Race, for sure!) Of these, education must be a priority, one we regard as an investment.
My own kids have completed their education, both in the public schools and college, but I still want my tax dollars to go to support students in the city of Boston. I want those young people to be educated in traditional public schools, not selective charters, because they deserve fully certified teachers, and because public schools, messy crossroads though they can be, are the foundation of our democracy. I do not want to live in a city that is filled with people who perceive that the deck is stacked against them. I want my neighbors and their children and grandchildren to receive a world class education which enables them to discover their abilities and passions because, selfishly, it makes me more secure. That costs money. We cannot do it on the cheap. We should not try to.
There is a notion that schools should be run like businesses and that corporate consultants like McKinsey ought to be tapped because they are experts on saving money for businesses. The argument is made that schools will respond to market pressures and if they “fail” they should go out of business. But schools are a public good, not businesses. If the public schools are defunded and stripped of their ability to educate well all of those who show up at the door, what business will step in to fill the void?
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Note that the first graph shows both the raw scores and adjusted scores (adjusted for the demographics of the student population – poverty, race, native language and the share of students in special education) to try to make them more comparable across states. So Massachusetts’ results are adjusted downward for the relatively advantaged student population, and (for example) Texas’ scores are adjusted upward for the relatively disadvantaged population.
But the second graph is presumably not similarly adjusted for Boston’s relatively disadvantaged student population. That is, Boston’s spending would look relatively even lower if the student demographics were taken into account.
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Bruce’s comments remind me of some charts I made a couple of years ago. A few things I noted about that year’s data:
1) Boston had the highest per-pupil foundation budget in the state. The foundation budget is determined using a formula that takes into account student need and cost of living, and is supposed to reflect the minimum that the school district should spend to adequately educate its student population. In other words, the state had higher spending expectations for Boston than any other district.
2) When you looked at per-pupil net school spending, Boston ranked 48th out of 231 districts. This was not adjusted for need, it was just the raw net school spending figure. As you note, it’s not like Boston is some kind of outlier.
3) If you took need into account by looking at each school district’s net school spending as a percentage of its foundation budget, Boston was actually below the state median.
Now, there are certainly caveats about this analysis. For one thing, it’s not at all clear to me that net school spending as a percentage of the foundation budget is necessarily the best way to adjust spending to account for student need. It also worked in BPS’s favor that I looked at net school spending (costs that go towards education) rather than total school spending (all school department costs, including things like transportation), because one very real budget issue that BPS has is that its net school spending is a smaller percentage of its total budget than most districts. Still, it does provide some interesting context, and it begins to show you that $1B may not be as outrageous a figure as many people initially assume.
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[…] This is my reaction to the recent OpEd written by Mayor Walsh and Superintendent Chang. In it, Mayor Walsh highlights the new challenges facing the school district and the unprecedented financial support he has allocated to the school system. Given inflation, that should come as no surprise to him or taxpayers. Every year, assuming growth, costs rise. Some years they may rise further than others but if we are growing as a city, increased expenses are part of the equation. He also states that he has allocated an unprecedented 1.1 billion dollars including 13.5 million more than last year towards education. If my math is correct, that is approximately $241.07 per student. He also fails to acknowledge it is smaller increase than previous years, that Boston’s education budget as percentage of the city’s budget is smaller than approximately 60% of other cities and towns in Boston and that across the state, public education accounts for, on average 53% of town budget allocations. For a detailed analysis: https://publicschoolmama.com/2015/12/29/lets-crunch-some-numbers-and-take-a-look-at-that-billion-doll…. […]
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