John Butcher, who puts the cranky in Crankysblog, dissed the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission for its nothing-burger draft report on “efficiency and effectiveness” of K-12 spending. The 120-page document, he says, ignored what the General Assembly asked it to do. He writes:
Of the nine recommendations, six talk about efficiency; half of the six deal with school buses; only one of the six deals with something that relates to education. None tells us about the educational effectiveness of our school spending or how to improve it:
- Track teacher turnover.
- Provide facilities management expertise.
- Provide “guidance” regarding sharing information about facilities management best practices.
- Consider statewide contract for bus routing and monitoring software.
- Provide transportation management expertise.
- Assist with transportation management best practices.
As to virtual schooling, JLARC again avoids answering the question. The three recommendations:
- Provide information about online schools.
- Estimate costs of online learning.
- Compare achievement of virtual v. physical schools
JLARC normally does better work. The advice in this “draft” isn’t bad, it just tweaks the margins. As I noted in a previous post, the last round of efficiency reviews resulted in $37.5 million in annual savings out of $15.7 billion spent, or about 0.2%. That level of savings doesn’t come close to addressing the magnitude of the issues facing our schools.
At the risk of sounding like a 5th-grade school teacher, I advise JLARC to go back, re-read the instructions, and try again.
— JAB
