[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: I Had No Idea - Part 3

[Email subscription to blog articles]

Posted by Speed Gibson:
I Had No Idea - Part 3
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1196986085.shtml


   This is episode 3 of how State aid to K-12 public schools is
   calculated. In [1]Part 1, I calculated "Pupil Units" and in [2]Part 2,
   I calculated Basic Revenue, Extended Time Revenue, Gifted & Talented
   Revenue, and Basic Skills Revenue. As you saw, it takes more than
   basic skills to get this far.
   Now let's calculate the sparsity amounts that help smaller and rural
   districts, starting with Elementary Sparsity Revenue. To qualify, "an
   elementary school must have an average of 20 or fewer pupils per grade
   level [including Kindergarten] and be located 19 miles or more from
   the nearest [other] elementary school."
    1. First, count the grades, up to 7 for a full K-6 school, and
       multiply by 20.
    2. Now, sum the enrollment (ADM) for these grades, which should be
       less than or equal to result 1 above.
    3. Subtract result 2 from result 1.
    4. Add result 2 and result 1.
    5. Divide result 3 by result 4, giving a ratio between 0 and 1.
    6. Multiply by result 2, the number of students (ADM).
    7. Multiply by the General Education Formula Allowance used to
       calculate Basic Revenue ($5,074).

   Get out your calculator for the Secondary Sparsity Revenue, for first
   we need to calculate an Isolation Index (II).
    1. Determine the school's area served in square miles.
    2. Multiply by 0.55, then take the square root.
    3. Add the number of miles to the nearest other secondary school.
       This is the Isolation Index. If not over 23, stop here; you get
       $0.
    4. If the enrollment is not under 400, stop here; you get $0.
    5. Subtract 23 from the Isolation Index above (result 3).
    6. Divide by 10, and do not allow the quotient to exceed 1.5.
    7. Subtract the enrollment (ADM) from 400.
    8. Add 400 to the enrollment (ADM).
    9. Divide Result 7 by Result 8, giving a ratio between 0 and 1.
   10. Multiply by the Result 6 quotient.
   11. Multiply by the enrollment (ADM).
   12. Multiply by the General Education Formula Allowance used to
       calculate Basic Revenue ($5,074).

   Finally, there is Transportation Sparsity Revenue available, assuming
   you can calculate it:
    1. Divide the district's square miles by the adjusted enrollment
       (AMCPU, see part 1).
    2. Take the higher of 0.2 and Result 1 as the District Sparsity Index
       (DSI).
    3. Take Result 1 as the District Density Index(DDI), but make sure
       it's at least 0.005 and no more than 0.2.
    4. Add 0.26 to Result 2 (DSI) and compute its common (base 10)
       logarithm.
    5. Add 0.13 to Result 3 (DDI) and compute its common (base 10)
       logarithm.
    6. Multiply results 4 and 5.
    7. Multiply by 0.1469.
    8. Subtract 0.0485.
    9. Multiply by the General Education Formula Allowance ($5,074).

   That's right, you need to know logarithms to help finance your school
   buses. Incidentally, the author overlooked that logarithms of numbers
   between 0 and 1 are negative. If it matters further, they still
   produce a positive number when multiplied together in step 6.
   I'm not going to cover every calculation, but part 4 will detail
   another complex formula. I think you see already that considerable
   time is being spent - and wasted - developing and complying with these
   formulas.

References

   1. http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1196921233.shtml
   2. http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1196952124.shtml