[meetingthrower]

School board member here. Although I'm in a rural district very different than NYC. I did an analysis on this. ~1/3 or less goes to front line instruction in my district (the 95%.). Around 1/3 to special ed. And around 1/3 to overhead.

So you're not quite wrong in the back of the envelope, but the assumptions are way off. For example, the 1/3 special ed in my district is consumed not by high paid specialists but by huge numbers of aids coupled with outrageous costs for a few students with services that require private drivers (with cars!) plus all the special private services they need.

[HDMI_Cable]

Sorry about that, I know nothing about education so I'm mostly trying to start a conversation here.

Given those numbers, we should expect $12,000 per pupil to go towards special ed (let's assume 10% need it) and $12,000 per pupil to go towards teacher salaries, and $12,000 for overhead.

With that $12,000, shouldn't NYC still have class sizes of ~10-12, assuming teachers make $120K a year (which is high, but perhaps not unfeasible considering NYC being fairly pro-public sector union and high cost of living)?

This also implies that the average cost per one special-ed student is $120K per year, which is very high, but fairly understandable given the needs you mentioned. In fact, special-ed teachers (assuming few-to-one class sizes) may make comparatively less than regular teachers given the need for aides.

Also $12K per pupil on overhead also makes sense, assuming a high cost for maintenance / repair, plus administrative salaries being higher than in other parts of the country.

This (again, very uninformed, back-of-the-envelope analysis) implies that policy objectives should focus on reducing special-ed costs while increasing quality of education, figuring out why we don't have smaller class sizes, and potentially reducing overhead (which I thought would be the most wasteful sector, but actually seems small in comparison).

[meetingthrower]

Unpopular opinion that special ed is draining districts dry...

[Kon-Peki]

The popularity of your opinion depends a lot on what you think we should do about it.

Reduce the percentage of kids that need services by putting more effort into improving pre-natal care? Cleaning up environmental contamination?

Or just cut spending?

[Auracle]

I was tasked with photographing a teacher once for work. In her class was a child that pretty clearly didn’t know what was going on and just moaned the majority of the time. He, of course, had an aid - quite possibly an actual nurse - that presumably had to be with him the whole time.

I fee for his parents. I’m sure they want him to have as normal of a life as he possibly can. That said, when one student is taking up the resources that could fund another entire class with no perceivable benefit…. Perhaps a group home would be a better fit?

I don’t think feeling that way makes me a monster, but I bet some people feel otherwise.

[coolhand2120]

All while homeless people starve down the street. We really need to get our priorities straight.

[woodada]

Cut spending