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Front St.Clovis Schools Section - Clovis Free PressBack St.
Vol. 17  No. 21 Final Edition
Clovis Free Press
March 25, 2001
Taxing For Public Schools
This Year $333.8 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent!


By Howard Hobbs Ph.D.
Valley Press Media Network


     CLOVIS -- The Valley Press Media monitors, collects, analyzes, and reports of public school data gathered from local regional and from around the nation relating to public school expenditures, standards, and district governance. Valley Press publishes reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics as a public service to assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems and education activities.
    Valley Press current release includes survey data empirically agthered by the National Center for Education Statistics. Early in October 2000, survey forms were sent to each state education agency. States were asked to complete the form and return it by mail or facsimile. States that had not responded by mid-November were contacted by telephone. The data was tabulated and then audited for reliability as to the number of students, teachers, and high school graduates for public elementary and secondary schools availabe. Data includes total tax revenues and expenditures for the operation of public elementary and secondary schools since last year at this time.
   Highlights of these statistics reveal there were approximately 47.2 million Prekindergarten through 12th Grade students in the nation's public schools in last Fall, compared with 46.9 million in Fall 1999.
     NEA 1990 Survey Student membership has increased by 1.5 million since Fall 1996 while. public school students were taught by an estimated 3.0 million teachers in school year 2000–2001. The student and teacher count data show a pupil/ teacher ratio of 16.0 for grades prekindergarten through 12th Grade for public schools over the same period.
     An estimated 2.5 million public school students graduated from high school in the 1999– 2000 school year. In the 2000–2001 school year, 2.5 million students are expected to graduate from high school.
    Tax revenues for public elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 2000 are estimated to be $364.0 billion, and they are expected to rise to approximately $384.7 billion in year 2001.
     Current expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for year 2001 are estimated to be $333.8 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent over the year 2000 estimate of $319.2 billion. The per pupil expenditure is anticipated to be $7,079 per student in membership for the 2000–2001 school year.


     [Editor's Note: Definitions usd in the reportsa include the following:
    Student Enrollment
is the unduplicated count of students on the roll of the school or local education agency on the school day closest to October 1. Unless otherwise specified, enrollment includes all students in Prekindergarten through 12th Grade and ungraded classes.
    Teachers
refers to professional staff who provide instruction to students and maintain daily student attendance figures for a group or class at any of the levels from Prekindergarten through 12th Grade and ungraded classes. Teacher numbers are reported in full-time equivalents (FTE), which are computed by dividing the amount of time employed in instruction by the time normally required of a full-time position.
    Pupil/ teacher ratio is the number of students divided by the number of teachers. The pupil/ teacher ratio for public schools reported here represents an average across all levels. There is, however, variability across school districts, Prekindergarten, elementary, and secondary grade levels, and across programs such as special education and gifted and talented.
     Graduates
are defined as students receiving a regular high school diploma during the school year, including summer graduates. Early estimates are provided for the recent graduates from the 1999– 2000 school year, with projections for the 2000– 01 school year.
     Revenues are defined as additions to assets which do not incur an obligation that must be met at some future date, do not represent exchanges of fixed assets, and are available for expenditure by the local education agencies in the state. Revenues include funds from local, intermediate, state, and federal sources.
     Current Expenditures
are funds spent for operating local public schools and include such items as salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and materials, and energy costs, but exclude capital outlay and interest on school debt.
     Per pupil expenditure
(or per pupil revenue) is the total current expenditure (or revenue) for public elementary and secondary education in a state divided by the student membership.
    The numbers reported here, based on membership, can be expected to be smaller than per pupil expenditures (and per pupil revenues) based on average daily attendance, because the membership counts are generally larger than average daily attendance. As with pupil/ teacher ratio, the average reported here does not reflect variations across school districts, grade levels, or programs.
    The estimates in this publication are key statistics reported during the 2000–2001 school year. They include the number of students enrolled, teachers, and high school graduates for public elementary and secondary schools, and total revenues and expenditures for the operation of public elementary and secondary schools. Data obtained from "Early Estimates of Public Elementary and Secondary Education Statistics: School Year 2000– 2001" U. S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.]

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