Jarod Apperson on his Grading Atlanta blog provides an excellent analysis of the relationship between higher poverty and lower performance. In "Bending the Curve: Why CCRPI Mislead Educators and Parents," Jarod's point is not to excuse low performance due to poverty; rather, he uses his analysis to reveal outliers, those schools that outperform the trendline, despite the challenges facing their students. Those are the Georgia schools we should be seeking to emulate Likewise, and as importantly, he shows where schools that are not "failing" are still underperforming their peers. But these schools get a free pass under the OSD proposal. It is this kind of keen analysis that is missing from Governor's Deal's appropriation of a 10-year-old Recovery School district model and its absolute 60-point failure demarcation.
Something that did particularly strike me was the statement that Georgia spends a far greater portion of its budget on K-12 education (24%) than any of the neighboring states, with the distinct implication that we are not seeing "a positive return on this sizable investment." But after a decade of K-12 education "austerity cuts," how could this possibly be? I did my own analysis using FY2013 budget numbers from the National Association of State Budget Officers [NASBO], and damn... Georgia is right there behind North Carolina in share of budget dedicated to K-12 education:
| State | K-12 Share |
| North Carolina | 24.8% |
| Georgia | 24.1% |
| Alabama | 20.4% |
| Kentucky | 19.6% |
| Florida | 19.3% |
| Louisiana | 19.3% |
| Tennessee | 17.8% |
| South Carolina | 17.6% |
| Mississippi | 16.4% |
| Arkansas | 15.6% |
| Virginia | 15.1% |
| West Virginia | 10.5% |
Still something didn't quite seem right, but then it struck me. I had just read this brilliant post on transportation spending: "Georgia's Budget Fat More Myth than Reality." Georgia's spending per capita is "downright lean" compared to most of our neighbors. So looking at total state expenditures and dividing by the state populations shows a uniquely different picture:
| State | Per Cap State Expend |
| West Virginia | $12,062.74 |
| Arkansas | $ 7,229.38 |
| Mississippi | $ 6,182.87 |
| Louisiana | $ 5,875.03 |
| Kentucky | $ 5,816.98 |
| Virginia | $ 5,493.08 |
| Alabama | $ 5,056.32 |
| Tennessee | $ 4,655.58 |
| South Carolina | $ 4,595.57 |
| North Carolina | $ 4,334.79 |
| Georgia | $ 4,203.48 |
| Florida | $ 3,215.71 |
But that then raises the question: if each state has a different population of students in K-12 education, how does Georgia's 24% of a lean state budget compare with these other states on a per student basis?
| State | State per student exp |
| West Virginia | $8,376.07 |
| Louisiana | $7,386.24 |
| Kentucky | $7,358.93 |
| North Carolina | $7,020.79 |
| Arkansas | $6,858.20 |
| Alabama | $6,780.74 |
| Mississippi | $6,211.69 |
| Georgia | $6,003.75 |
| Virginia | $5,458.99 |
| Tennessee | $5,346.63 |
| South Carolina | $5,282.89 |
| Florida | $4,541.57 |
Georgia ranks 8th among 12 southeastern states in the amount of funding provided from the state. Also note that Governor Deal's poster child for the Opportunity/Recovery School District, Louisiana, spends substantially more in state dollars per student.
Now if there was any way to quantify the outcomes..... Of course there are many ways to assess academic achievement, but the Ed Week Quality Counts annual report does provide a rating for K-12 Achievement on its 2015 grading summary. (The Achievement Index "assesses the performance of a state’s public schools
against a broad set of 18 indicators capturing: current achievement levels, improvements over time, and
poverty-based disparities or gaps.") The Achievement Index scores range from Massachusetts (83.7) to Mississippi (57,1), with Georgia above the national average and third in the southeast.
| State | Quality Counts-ACH | State per student exp |
| Florida | 75.8 | $4,541.57 |
| Virginia | 74.2 | $5,458.99 |
| Georgia | 70.7 | $6,003.75 |
| Kentucky | 70.3 | $7,358.93 |
| North Carolina | 69.8 | $7,020.79 |
| Tennessee | 68.8 | $5,346.63 |
| Arkansas | 66.7 | $6,858.20 |
| South Carolina | 62.6 | $5,282.89 |
| Alabama | 62.2 | $6,780.74 |
| West Virginia | 60.8 | $8,376.07 |
| Louisiana | 59.8 | $7,386.24 |
| Mississippi | 57.1 | $6,211.69 |
So what is the takeaway from all this? First, citing education spending as a percentage of a very slim budget might advance a narrative, but it does very little to illustrate the reality of funding for Georgia's schools. Second, not only have Georgia's schools exceeded at doing more with less, they have continually improved overall, and rank third among 12 southeastern states in an objective, third-party measure of achievement. Do we still have a long way to go--absolutely. Do we have pockets where schools struggle to meet the needs of their student? No doubt.
Most importantly--the Representatives of the Georgia General Assembly should carefully consider why they would implement an Opportunity School District based on a model of Louisiana's Recovery School District when that state--after ten years of the RSD--spends the second highest amount per student for the second worst result in the southeast.
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