Comparing School Financial and Academic Performance Part 4

In Part 3, a comparison of "Instruction" and "Support Services (Overhead)" spending demonstrated that FCPS spends a far higher percentage of the budget on "Support Services" than other County school systems of similar size and budget. Part 4 focuses on a ten-year pattern of spending as well as a comparison of academic performance over that time, including COVID.

The chart "Percent Spending Instruction vs Support Services and 3rd Grade RLA/ELA Results" shows trends for spending on teachers and classroom "Instruction" versus other, non-classroom related, "Support Services." The spending lines are complemented by a 3rd Grade RLA/ELA trend over ten years. It is easy to see downward trending in scores as the percentage of spending on Support Services increased and that of Instruction decreased. While it appears that COVID did have some impact on the scores, the overall trend was already going in a negative direction as Support Services spending moved upward. In 2016, there was a transition from RLA (Reading/Language Arts) to ELA (English Language Arts). The 2016 data shows "suppressed" in the state database and no 3rd Grade data is available. Because of school closures in 2020, no data is available for 2020.

Viewing the linear trend lines (dashed red lines) in the chart, in 2013 when spending was fifty-five percent Instruction and forty-five percent Support Services, 3rd Grade RLA scores were significantly higher. As the percentage of spending on Instruction decreased, scores began to sink lower. In 2017, following the change from RLA to ELA, scores plummeted. However, at the same time, Support Services spending moved up to forty-eight percent while Instruction spending moved down to fifty-two percent. Spending fluctuated in 2020 and 2021, but in 2022 it reached fifty-one percent Instruction and forty-nine percent Support Services. The 2023 spending data is not yet available so that information cannot be shown at this time. In 2023, FCPS was ranked #94 out of 95 counties in 3rd-8th Reading and the composite of all factors resulted in a Fayette County rank of #95 of 95 counties for Education in the Tennessee "2023 County Profiles."

The following chart, "3rd Grade ELA Results over 10 Years," shows how all the Counties in the study have performed over the past ten years. This includes a transition from RLA to ELA in 2016 and COVID in 2020. There are some important points to note:

• FCPS scores began trending lower between 2013 and 2015.
• All counties in the study, apart from Obion, had difficulty with the ELA testing in 2017.
• Between 2017 and 2019, FCPS scores begun to trend upward while other counties experienced mixed results.
• In 2021, all but Obion had results that were lower than 2019 with FCPS having the lowest.
• In 2022, Henry County had a modest increase in results while other counties continued to slide, particularly Obion County.
• In 2023, FCPS continued to slide while all other counties saw sharp improvement in ELA results.

It is important to note the marked improvement of all counties in 2023 except for FCPS. Even considering the redo, apart from whether a redo was done in other counties, FPCS still has the lowest 3rd Grade ELA scores.

An important consideration is that FCPS spends significantly more on Support Services and less on Instruction as a percentage of the budget when compared to other counties. This translates to lower teacher pay, which makes it difficult to hire and retain good teachers. Consequently, this is likely an important factor in the state of Tennessee’s current ranking of FCPS as #95 of 95 county school systems in Tennessee.