BREAKING: Post-Katrina New Orleans Schools Costs More, Admin Salaries a Main Reason
On January 17, 2017, the Education Research Alliance of New Orleans (ERA) released a report entitled, “Does School Reform Equal Spending Reform?”
The short answer is no, and those who push to decentralize a school district in the name of “choice” should be prepared to spend more if for no other reason that a loss of economy of scale– in other words, of paying for the loss of centralized operations.
Then there are issues related to those running the decentralized schools– the administrators.
In the ERA report, these individuals were the principal reason (pun intended) for the finding that post-Katrina New Orleans publicly funded education (which is now chiefly done by charter schools with their own charter management orgs.) costs 13 percent more ($1,358) per pupil than it does in comparable Louisiana school districts– districts with comparable per-pupil spending pre-Katrina.
The greatest increase for New Orleans schools goes to its administrators, as ERA reports:
Spending on administration in New Orleans’ publicly funded schools increased by 66% ($699 per student) relative to the comparison group, far more than the overall spending increase. Of this increase, 52% ($363 per student) is due to a rise in total administrative salaries. Roughly one-third of the increase in administrative salaries is due to hiring more administrators, and the remainder is due to higher average salaries per administrator.
In an attempt to explain the possible reasons for the astounding administrative costs BREAKING: Post-Katrina New Orleans Schools Costs More, Admin Salaries a Main Reason | deutsch29: