New report criticizes
isle school spendingLingle says only half of the
DOE budget goes to classrooms
Hawaii spent $1.9 billion on public schools last year, or $10,422 per student, but just half of that money made it to the classroom, according to a new financial analysis prepared for the Lingle administration.
"It's important before the public discussion heats up during the (legislative) session that everyone has good, solid information," said Gov. Linda Lingle, who is pushing to break up the Department of Education into local school districts. "The report found that only 49 cents of every dollar is traceable to classrooms, to teachers and students."
But Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto took issue with the report, saying it distorts data to inflate expenditures and administrative costs, which she said are closer to 3 percent of school spending.
The report was written by Bruce Cooper, a professor of educational administration at Fordham University in New York City, and William Ouchi, a professor of corporate renewal at the University of California at Los Angeles, and funded by the Harold Castle Foundation and the Hawaii Business Round Table.
Ouchi said the researchers tried to track all spending that is related to schools, including expenditures by other state agencies, as well as capital improvement projects and debt service. He said it was a tough job because "DOE has become so large that it has far outrun its ability to manage its finances."
Spending on building projects and debt service is normally not included in per-pupil expenditures. If only operating expenses are included, the report and the state Department of Education agree that per-pupil spending in 2002-03 was nearly $8,400.
That figure reflects raises teachers won after they went on strike in 2001, as well as ramped-up spending to repair and maintain schools. The schools had built up a $600 million backlog in needed repairs; legislators pumped $150 million into the job in 2002, but such spending is down to $35 million this year.
Hamamoto contends that the study mis-classifies many expenses as central office costs when they are actually school expenses. She cited as examples school utility bills, substitute teachers, student transportation, school food services and employee benefits for school-based staff.
"We don't want to draw conclusions that may not be supported by the data," she said.
No comparative data is available for other states for the 2002-03 school year. The report says Hawaii ranked 14th among the 50 states in operating expenditures per pupil, at $8,361, in 2001-02, the most recent year that comparative data is available. It cited the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Department of Education's statistical arm, as the source for that information.
But the center's Web site lists Hawaii's per-pupil spending at $6,775 that year, or 33rd among the states and well below the national average of $7,524, based on early estimates in the Digest of Education Statistics. Hawaii's final financial statement that year put spending at $7,625 per pupil.
Asked where the 14th-place ranking and the $8,361 figure could be found, Cooper consulted with his research assistant before responding that the numbers in his report were actually based on U.S. Census data. The figures, he said, were revenues, not expenditures, to unified school districts that the researchers adjusted to account for the cost of living.
"If you look at the achievement scores and look at the increase in spending, you would say that we haven't gotten the kind of results you would expect," Lingle said. "Thousands of people feel we are not getting our money's worth."
The report also found that although the number of students in public schools is close to what it was 30 years ago, nearly 183,000, the number of Department of Education employees has nearly doubled to 23,790 from 12,125.
"It appears to us that hiring in the DOE is out of control, quite literally," Ouchi concluded.
Hamamoto said that staff and spending have increased, but much of that is due to special education and other mandates, and that the employees support students in the schools.
As for the estimate that 49 cents on the dollar makes it to Hawaii's classrooms, Ouchi said no comparative figures are available for other states under his formulation. But he thinks Hawaii should try to emulate the Canadian school district of Edmonton, where the figure is 65 cents, according to his analysis.
The National Center for Education Statistics lists Hawaii as having between 2 and 3 percent of its professional staff performing administrative functions, compared with close to 4 percent for the nation as a whole, in the most recent data available.
