By Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Savings in ESOL Drop Insignificant
According to the Wasington Post, the drop in ESOL students isn’t truly saving the schools the $6 million that Corey repeatedly suggests. If we remove the $2 million of additional state funding then the ‘savings’ start to look more like $4 million. At this point we start to reach numbers that according to Corey himself are insignificant in an $850+ million dollar budget. Of course, if the trend continues it could have an affect on school construction etc… This year’s double digit losses in real estate assessments combined with a staggering forecloser rate and an over abundance of homes on the market that now appear to be selling at dirt cheap prices leads me to believe next year’s assessments will again suffer debilitating losses. How does this translate into next year’s budget since schools are mainly funded through real estate assessment taxes, only time will tell.
State education aid is distributed to school systems according to poverty and enrollment data and provides nearly half of Prince William’s annual school funding. When students leave a school system, so does state funding. David S. Cline, director of financial services for Prince William schools, estimated that the reduction in state funding this school year because of the ESOL student exodus totaled $2 million. But the school system was unable to reduce spending accordingly because students left from many schools. Officials could not reduce teaching staff, for example, or send back textbooks.
