Kansas Common Core Implementation Costs

Kansas Common Core Implementation Costs

(Information for KansasState Board of Education)

by Henry W. Burke

10.29.12

Thank you for your correspondence and your interest in the Pioneer Institute report, "National Cost of Aligning States and Localities to the Common Core Standards," dated February 2012 (PI report) and my report, "States' Taxpayers Cannot Afford Common Core Standards," dated 10.15.12 (Burke report).  These are the links to the reports:

http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/120222_CCSSICost.pdf

http://educationviews.org/states-taxpayers-cannot-afford-common-core-standards/

I encourage you to realistically evaluate the costs versus the benefits for the State of Kansas.  I will focus only on the cost of implementing the Common Core Standards (CCS) versus the dollar awards received from the federal government.

I thought I would offer a little insight into the CCS implementation costs.  This explanation includes the Pioneer report figures and my assumptions.  Obviously, I cannot speak for the Pioneer Institute nor its partners in the white paper, Accountability Works and Pacific Research Institute.  These are strictly my thoughts, assumptions and calculations.

The Pioneer Institute report identified four cost categories for CCS implementation.  The categories are: Testing, Professional Development, Textbooks, and Technology.  Pioneer calculated the total CCS implementation cost over a 7-year time period. 

 The PI report included bar graphs (without dollar figures) for each state in Professional Development, Textbooks, and Technology.  The Appendices to the PI report showed exact dollar figures for each state in only the Textbooks and Technology categories.  This is the link to the Pioneer Institute Appendices:

http://www.accountabilityworks.org/photos/Appendices.Common_Core_Cost.AW.pdf

Consequently, I had to derive figures for Testing and Professional Development for each of the 46 states.  My goal was to duplicate the Pioneer figures as closely as possible.  My nationwide totals for the four categories agree quite closely with the Pioneer Institute report. 

A.  Kansas CCS Loss

The State of Kansas submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) for Phase 1 of the Race to the Top (RTTT) program and received a Rank of No. 29 in that competition.  Only two states (Delaware and Tennessee) received awards in Phase 1.  Kansas did not submit a proposal for Phase 2 of RTTT.  In subsequent competitions, Kansas received $11,180,442 ($11.180 million) in competitive stimulus awards.

According to my Table 8, Competitive Stimulus Awards, Kansas was ranked No. 27 in competitive grants per student, with $24 per student.

In the Burke Table 1, CCS Loss Per State, the CCS Total Cost is $185.515 million; and the federal competitive award total is $11.180 million.  The difference is $174.335 million.

[$185.515 million - $11.180 million = $174.335 million]

This means Kansas will have to find $174.3 million to pay for the implementation expense of CCS.

In Table 2, CCS Cost Per Student, we can see that Kansas has a CCS Cost per Student of $395.  This is slightly above the average cost per student of $379 (average cost for the 46 CCS states).

B.  Kansas CCS Cost

Table 3, Total CCS Cost, lists the components making up the Total CCS Cost of $185.515 million.  Testing cost is $13.950 million; Professional Development cost is $67.006 million; Textbook cost is $27.758 million; and Technology cost is $76.801 million.

In round numbers, Kansas will spend $14 million on Testing, $67 million on Professional Development, $28 million on Textbooks, and $77 million on Technology.  The Total CCS Cost for Kansas will be $186 million.

Explanation of Figures

1.  Testing -- Testing is a function of the number of students tested.  Table 5 in my report shows the Total Nationwide Cost for the 46 CCS states.  My Table 5 duplicates Pioneer Figure 2B (on page 2 of the PI report).  Figure 2B shows a Total Testing Cost of $1,240,641,297. 

Table 6 (Burke report) lists the number of students and teachers in each of the 46 states; the total for the 46 states is 41,805,062 students.  I obtained all of the numbers in Table 6 from the Pioneer report Appendices (NCES: 2009 - 2010 School Year). 

When I divided $1,240,641,297 by 41,805,062 students, I obtained a factor of $29.67681993 per student.  This Testing cost factor was applied to each of the 46 states to get the Testing cost for each state.  My Total Testing Cost of $1,240.641 agrees with the Pioneer Figure 2B number.

Kansas has a total student enrollment of 470,057 students.  When I multiplied 470,057 students by the $29.6768 factor per student, I obtained $13.950 million.

[470,057 students  x  $29.67681993 per student = $13,949,797]

2.  Professional Development -- The purpose of Professional Development is to train the teachers on the new Common Core academic standards.  Professional Development is a function of the number of teachers that must be trained.  Pioneer used a Professional Development cost of $1,931 per teacher.

Kansas has 34,700 teachers.  When I multiplied 34,700 teachers by $1,931 per teacher, I obtained $67.006 million.

[34,700 teachers  x  $1,931 per teacher = $67,005,700]

Incidentally, my calculations produced a Professional Development Cost for California of $605.938 million.  The PI report bar graph showed a number of $606 million for California.  This verifies that my calculation assumptions are correct.

3.  Textbooks -- I obtained the Textbook cost for Kansas directly from the Pioneer Institute Appendix.  The Table in the Appendix showed a Total Textbook Cost for Kansas of $27,757,804 ($27.758 million).

The PI Appendix listed the following numbers for Textbooks and Instructional Materials:

Kansas Textbook Cost

(Millions of Dollars)

Grade	Textbook Cost ($ Millions)
K	2.610
1	2.435
2	1.949
3	1.996
4	1.801
5	1.779
6	2.039
Subtotal -- K - 6	14.609
7	2.035
8	2.092
9	2.331
Subtotal -- 7 - 9	6.458
10	2.207
11	2.286
12	2.198
Subtotal -- 10 - 12	6.691
Total -- K - 12	27.758

4.  Technology -- I obtained the Technology cost for Kansas directly from the Pioneer Appendix.  The PI Appendix lists the Total Technology Cost for Kansas as $76,801,493 ($76.801 million).

The PI Appendix provides the following information:

Kansas Technology Cost 

(Millions of Dollars)

Description	Technology Cost ($ Millions)	Total Technology Cost ($ Millions)
One-Time Costs	31.441	31.441
Year 1 Operations	3.350	3.350
Years 2 - 7 Operations (Annual)	7.0016	--
Total for 6 Years (Years 2 - 7)	42.010	42.010
Total Technology Cost		76.801

Henry W. Burke 

E-mail: hwburke@cox.net