94chem said:
Just trying to follow the logic and the numbers. It seems like we have some people who think that "illegals stacked 8 deep" are causing the budget to be overrun by going to school. It also seems like we have some people (perhaps the same ones?) who think that "illegals stacked 8 deep" are helping the district by not going to school. It's tough to see how both premises can be true, even if we assume there are a significant number of stacks of illegal immigrant children.
I'm actually trying to be educated. In New Caney ISD they have open enrollment. How does that benefit a district? IDK...
I think most on here have only stated that the cost of feeding, educating, etc. illegals is a contributing fact to the problem.
However, a whole host of folks see the world "illegal" and immediately go into racism defensive mode and think that those that are pointing out one of several contributing factors to over expenditures are stating that this is the only contributing factor, which is not the case.
Generally speaking, school districts are simply another .gov bureaucratic program. They are often run by people that have little to no actual experience outside of the bubble of education and whom have made it their goal in life to become an administrator at a particular or any ISD. There is little to no actual experience with operations budgets, much less experience with running a program with profit in mind.
A lot of the issue is simply how .gov budgets are determined. You get $1MM budget during this fiscal year, if you are a hell of a manager and run a great program and eliminate costs and only spend $800,000 there is no incentive or reward for your fiscal responsibility. In fact, you get punished the next year by getting a reduced budget and often more hands in your cookie jar pressuring your reduced budget because it's percieved you have money to burn. Or you go out and spend every bit of that $200k you would have saved, plus a smidge more and then ask for more money next year.
Most districts are top heavy with admin, many of whom don't actually do anything. I know my wife's district is that way (apparently I just pull stuff out of my ass as evidenced by a comment in another post, so having a wife as a teacher moving into a more administrative role likely means i'm just more FOS). Granted, not all districts work this way, but it's safe to say that the overwhelming majority of districts in urban areas are very similar in nature - highly politicized, run by people that do not need to run school districts, and generally rife with corruption to some degree or another. Too many people working on political careers and absolute dumbasses when it comes to practical or business decisions, and decisions are way too clouded with "what if" scenarios to the point that the best and most logical decision is usually the first one removed from consideration.
Free meals, reduced cost meals, ESL, lack of discipline and a host of other non-essential to education items also have pressing burdens on budgets. School districts having their own police force, school districts buying or leasing vehicles instead of having employees use their own and getting paid mileage, buildings not being sold because of whatever reason (in my wife's district is is political) and the resulting maintenance cost and tax cost of those, not consolidating poorly financed or managed schools into a single school where it can be better managed and subsequently paying the additional overhead, power, maintenance, etc. all end up being reasons why schools operate in the red.
A huge component is parents - most simply don't care. Even more don't care in districts with higher percentages of lower income families (I don't have hard numbers for this, so i'm sure i'll get accused of pulling more **** out of my ass).
It's a culmination of several factors that most inner city or large metropolitan area districts all seem to have in common, yet none seem to change that leads to what HISD is going through. And no politician is going to put their sack on the chopping block to make changes that need to be made, because it's political suicide to do so.
