On cutting education funding $5, $10 or $14 million

Governor Kitzhaber and the legislature are currently battling over what cuts to make in state government funding in response to a $340 million shortfall in state revenues thru June 2013. Kitzhaber’s earlier list had included $14.2 million in cuts from K-12 schools (here). Now Kitzhaber says in a news release “my recommendations recognize state government must do more with less and provide Oregonians the critical services they need in the most efficient and effective way possible" (here).

Let me add this perspective to their discussion. Oregon could save $5 to $10 million per school year by shifting ten percent of its high school students to taking one independent online course each semester. This has not happened and is not happening because teachers’ unions and their allies oppose it.

Here are my rough calculations:

Oregon currently has 176,902 high school students. Ten percent of them is 17,690.

It currently costs Oregon roughly $6,000 per student per year in State School Funds. Using a seven period high school schedule, that equal $857 per high school credit per year.

There are lots of online high school course offerings available. I’ll here cite the costs from three already used by many Oregon students: (a) BrighamYoung University offers lots of high school classes online for $128 per 0.5 credit (here); (b) Salem-Kaiser Online offers high school classes online for $265 per 0.5 credit (here). And (c) Oregon Virtual Education (ORVED, operated by the NW Regional Education Service District) offers high school courses for $195 per 0.5 credit (here).

So, the lowest cost (BYU) is $256 for a high school credit and the highest of the three (Salem-Kaiser Online) is $530. Shifting a student to one online course can save from $327 ($857 minus $530) to $601 ($857 minus $256) per student.

Statewide savings equal 17,690 students times $327 for $5.78 million or times $601 for $10.63 million.

Note: Such saving come only if the online courses are taken completely independently (as they are designed to be) from the bricks-and-mortar schools, and the bricks-and-mortar schools reduce their costs (mostly teachers) to reflect fewer students.

So I agree with Governor Kitzhaber that “state government must do more with less and provide Oregonians the critical services they need in the most efficient and effective way possible." Online education offers such opportunities.

Further note: I (sadly) do not support the current Oregon educational system. Beyond not seeking efficiencies from online education, the current system is failing to respond to changing global economic and geopolitical realities (like the rise of China) with more foreign language immersion programs (especially Mandarin) and with paid high school study abroad programs. The legislature and local school districts have repeatedly failed to allocate even $30,000 for a pilot high school study abroad program. I’ll support cuts in education until the system changes.

 

 

 

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