Capital Region school spending
The Albany school district spent $22,628.36 per pupil in 2007-2008.
The Empire Center has added a school districts component to its SeeThroughNY web site/databse. From the site description:
This searchable database includes spending, debt and revenue levels of counties, cities, towns, villages and school districts throughout the Empire State, excluding only New York City. You can use this search form to find useful data for any single government or school district, to create categorical rankings statewide or by region, and to compare several entities to one another.
So we exported the school district data from the site and pulled all the entries for Capital Region districts. A chart is after the jump, along with a few quick notes and observations.
Scroll up for the chart
All data is from SeeThroughNY.
Figures are from the 2007-2008 school year.
This chart is only part of the story. We excluded the breakdowns for state and federal funding, as well as a number of expense categories. If you're interested in this topic, it's worth going to the SeeThroughNY site to see all the data available.
A few notes
+ The total per-pupil spending figures for North Greenbush and Rensselaer seem outlandishly high -- so much so that we suspect there's an error somewhere in how the totals were calculated.
+ Among the largest school districts (enrollments 4000+):
- Troy had the highest total spending per pupil ($23,486.26) and North Colonie the lowest ($14,271.59)
- Schenectady had the highest effective property tax rate (1.79%) and Saratoga Springs the lowest (1.02%)
- Albany had the highest local revenue per pupil ($11,839.38) -- but was that total was third-to-last as a percentage of overall per-pupil spending.
+ The top five for highest effective property tax rate:
- Maplewood-Colonie - 2.24%
- Schenectady - 1.79%
- Troy - 1.77%
- Waterford-Halfmoon - 1.69%
- Albany - 1.66%
+ The Maplewood-Colonie district is tiny -- just 147 students.
This Capital Region breakdown is available as an xls file.
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Comments
Don't you think it's odd that one of the best school districts in the area (North Colonie) also had one of the lowest per pupil spending?
Don't you also think it's odd that since the 50's & 60's our national test scores have been stagnant-to-declining but our inflation adjusted spending per pupil has doubled or tripled?
The spending isn't going to the kids, its going to the teachers union and unnecessary administration.
http://www.thecartelmovie.com/
... said Endless Ike on Nov 17, 2009 at 6:00 PM | link
Maplewood was absorbed into North Colonie last year. That significantly reduced the tax rate of those living within the former district.
... said Geepers on Nov 17, 2009 at 9:43 PM | link
WOW!!! The Troy School System spent over $23,000 per student. Total of 4,326 students means a grand total of a little over 99 million. They could have sent the entire school to RPI in 2007-2008 for only 51 million more. Or, they could have all gone to Northeastern (and lived in the dorms) for only 103 million more.
I'm sure Troy has some fine teachers - but honestly, these numbers are a little out of control.
... said WOW on Nov 18, 2009 at 4:54 PM | link
Endless Ike, what national test scores are you referring to? If its for the SATs, the population taking these tests has changed since the '50s and '60s--more students are taking these tests and they come from more diverse backgrounds...the SATs aren't just for students who want to go to an Ivy League school...
... said k on Nov 20, 2009 at 11:46 AM | link