The 2007 Tennessee Department of Education Report Card arrived today.
It was the statistics section that really stuck me: just in the last four years that I’ve been a member of the school board, our demographics have changed significantly. That means that to maintain and improve, we’re going to face new challenges, and we’ll have to do some things differently.
The most glaring to me is that our economically disadvantaged population has grown from 29.5% in 2004, to 34.7% in 2007 (in 2000, it was 23.3%). In seven years, we’ve seen more than a 10% increase in at-risk students!
Students with disabilities have grown from 21.8% to 25.1%. Students with limited English proficiency have doubled, from 55 to 111 students.
Over that same time period, our per-pupil funding has grown from $10,032 to $10,602 — a 5% increase over four years. Just as Oak Ridge is different than it was a few years ago (remember when we didn’t have any murders?), our school population is different as well.
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Thanks Angi. Are the budget figures adjusted to current-year dollars, or are they “then-year” figures? Also, what’s your assessment on the “under revision” graduation rates? The “cohort dropout” rate seems unduly high — does that also include students who transfer out of the system?
Budget figures are not adjusted, they’re actual dollars for the year designated. The graduation rate is under revision because there were some students incorrectly coded — I think they may have been coded as dropouts when they transferred to another system or to state custody. More information should be available shortly.
What do you attribute such a turn about in such a short period of time to?
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