doc89 t1_je065ii wrote
Reply to comment by NonIdentifiableUser in Mad about book bans in school libraries? Philadelphia has a solution - no libraries at all! Only 7/217 schools have libraries for their kids. by youngbuck215
>The point is that, on average, it costs more to educate children in Philadelphia, where a large percentage of the population is living in poverty and thus facing a number of externalities that complicate things, than a wealthy suburb.
Why does it cost more? Most of the expenses (teacher/admin salary, books, etc) should be largely the same no matter where they are paid for.
signedpants t1_je0da06 wrote
The good news is that the above commenter posted the article that answers your questions. Not exactly shocking, but a lot more intensive teaching is required when you have a large amount of students who are homeless, lack internet access, require special education etc.
doc89 t1_je0e8te wrote
>homeless
What percentage of Philadelphia public school children are homeless? And how much more does it cost to educate a homeless child than a housed child?
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>lack internet access
Why does this increase the cost to educate children?
The district could literally just pay ~$50/mo to get every family free internet and it would represent like 2% of the total budget.
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>require special education etc.
That is the entire question I'm asking here: what is so "special" about Philadelphia children that they cost 50% or 100% more to educate than suburban children?
signedpants t1_je0fow4 wrote
I have not found a single website that comes close to your 50 or 100 percent numbers. What source are you getting these numbers from? Since we're discussing relative spending, the answer to your questions don't need to be hard numbers. Just that those numbers are higher in the city compared to the suburbs. Which certainly you can understand?
doc89 t1_je0hcav wrote
>I have not found a single website that comes close to your 50 or 100 percent numbers. What source are you getting these numbers from?
I'm just spitballing based on numbers in the inquirer article.
In reality, the philadelphia district and lower merion have roughly the same per student expenses:
https://www.niche.com/k12/d/philadelphia-city-school-district-pa/
https://www.niche.com/k12/d/lower-merion-school-district-pa/
...but the article implies that this number actually would need to be increased thousands more in Philadelphia in order to get up to the state average, or to get to what Lower Merion "spends":
" a need-adjusted measure of what districts actually spend — is $10,796 per student; the state average is $13,688. Lower Merion, by comparison, spells $26,362 per student."
Which gets back to my original point about why this type of analysis is so silly and ridiculous. Measured in dollars (which is how most people measure spending usually...), these districts spend similar amounts but measured in this mysterious "Needs Based Adjusted" metric, the numbers come out wildly different. It just seems dishonest and bizarre.
signedpants t1_je0jaod wrote
The poverty rate in Philadelphia is 23%, it's 3% in lower merion. Average household income in LM and median salary are double that of philadelphia. That obviously puts a massive strain on the school system. Does that really seem all that bizarre and dishonest?
doc89 t1_je0jxy6 wrote
>That obviously puts a massive strain on the school system. Does that really seem all that bizarre and dishonest?
Yes, I think it's dishonest to pretend that the schools are "underfunded" when they are funded at the same/similar dollar amount as other schools or to pretend that poor kids need to have double or triple the amount of money spent on them as non-poor kids.
realityhofosho t1_je11758 wrote
It is required. I agree. But does it happen? I've never seen this.
(and I'm not saying it doesn't, but I've been in education for 25 years in the city, and I've yet to see it.)
Instead, I see (sadly) a "you get what you pay for" model in action. These schools are the worst funded, and you can tell.
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