Dear Editor:
In the Dec. 23 "Two high schools not enough?" article one of the attendees, "cited doctors and other professionals who choose to live elsewhere and commute to Jefferson City because of the condition of the school system not being up to par for the standards they want for their children." That may well be the case but the reason doesn't seem to be a lack of funding.
Why are parents, and we taxpayers, willing to accept so little "bang for our buck" from the students, and their parents, at JCPS? I have no firsthand knowledge of local school systems, we have only lived in the area a few years.
The following data comes from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website.
Blair Oaks spends $7,440 per ADA (average daily attendance) on its students, JCPS spends $9,254. Blair Oaks has a tax rate of $3.66 while JCPS's is $3.69 (JCPS's will increase to $4.89, a 33 percent increase, if the proposed tax hikes are approved).
Blair Oaks has a student/administrator ratio of 236 while JCPS's is 248. Blair Oaks has a student/teacher ratio of 16 while JCPS's is 14. Blair Oaks earned an APR score of 139, out of a possible 140, while JCPS's score was 106.5. Based on percentile of possible points, JCPS's score ranked it in the bottom 10 percent of all districts in the state.
JCPS does have more students who qualify for free or reduced price lunch, 53.5 percent of those at the high school , versus 11.5 percent of Blair Oaks high school students. If poverty is the excuse for the poor scores then how did Adair Co R-1 manage an APR score of 135.5? 53.5 percent of Adair Co R-1 high school students qualify for free or reduced price lunches. The district spends $9,554 per ADA.
Why does 65.0 percent of JCPS funding come from local sources while only 23.2 percent comes from the state? The figures for Blair Oaks are 46.1 percent local and 48.4 percent state. For Adair they are 39.3 percent local and 51.1 percent state.
Perhaps those more familiar with JCPS can enlighten me as to why we get so little bang for our buck.
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