A few months ago, the Economist ran an article about school bureaucracy in New York City (December 19, 1992). It pointed out that per-pupil expenditures in 1991 were $7,414--more than in all but a handful of other big metropolitan areas. But despite the relatively generous spending, the article said, public education in New York City is in bad shape because the bureaucracy eats up much of the money that should be going to students. The Economist's most striking figure came from a 1990 study by Professor Bruce Cooper of Fordham University. According to Professor Cooper, in 1988-89, only $.32 of every dollar got to the classroom--the rest went to administration.
The first time I saw this figure was a couple of years ago when Professor Cooper sent me this study prior to publishing it. Of course I was a receptive audience. I had long suspected that most school administrations--in New York City and all over the country--suffered from bureaucratic bloat and that students and teachers were being starved as a result. My suspicions were increased by the difficulty in getting consistent figures about administrative costs from school districts. So I couldn't help being impressed by an apparently objective study that confirmed what I already saw as a problem.
Nevertheless, some of the data in Professor Cooper's study didn't look quite right--especially the astounding figure showing how much money ended up in the classroom. Could it really be as little as 32 percent? So I checked Cooper's figures against the board of education budget figures and found some serious problems. For example, Professor Cooper put expenses for student transportation and food service in with administration. These things are not directly related to what goes on in the classroom, but they are essential student services, not part of bureaucratic bloat. The biggest problem with the figures came from Professor Cooper's apparently not realizing that salaries for New York City's special education teachers, including teachers of the handicapped, are paid by the central board instead of the community boards. As a result, he counted special ed teachers as central office bureaucrats. Since they represent 25 percent of all teachers in New York City, this knocked his figures way off.
I let Professor Cooper know about these and other problems and suggested that he go back over his figures. However, he published the paper unchanged, and the astounding--and inaccurate--figure that caught my attention has now been quoted as gospel in a number of places. It was featured in a big article in Forbes magazine (June 25, 1990). It appeared in a newsletter sent out by Senator Alfonse D'Amato, and there was the recent mention in the Economist.
So now people all over the world are misinformed about the cost of the school bureaucracy in New York City. It's too bad that no one from Forbes or the Economist or Senator D'Amato's office checked Professor Cooper's figure before quoting it. Perhaps they didn't imagine that anyone ( especially an academic) would be so careless with the facts. Besides, as Lewis Carroll said, "What I tell you three times is true": A number or "fact" that is repeated often enough takes on a life of its own. So we can probably look forward, over the years, to lots more sightings of Professor Cooper's figure.
Recently, Professor Cooper unveiled a new study of school expenditures. He now uses a revised version of the model he constructed for his New York City study, and he gets very different results. According to this model, which he has applied to 30 or so school districts, the average amount of money that gets to the classroom is 61 percent, not 32 percent. That, incidentally, is consistent with figures commonly given for average classroom expenditures. How does he square these results with what he found in New York City?
Professor Cooper acknowledges that his original model was "primitive" and "flawed" and that it did not accurately represent the administrative costs in New York City schools. Is he going to write to the Economist, for example, and try to set the record straight? "No," he says, "I stand by my numbers." Why, he seems to be saying, be consistent--and honest--when you can have your cake and eat it, too?
I certainly agree with Cooper's desire to reduce bureaucracy, but the best way to get rid of high overhead for administration is by accurate public reporting and public pressure. It wouldn't be too much for the federal government to require school districts to submit accurate data on administrative costs as a condition of receiving federal aid. Then we'd have the ammunition to organize against the culprits instead of having to depend on yellow journalism masquerading as research.