I wonder where my comment went to. There was nothing degrading or skewed in any way to be offensive. Well, I guess I'll post it again. I was commenting on the fact that a lot of people simply don't have the money to give. The fact that the good paying, full time jobs are just not out there and people are looking out for themselves, making sure they have what they need first comes before the extra funds to give to things like this.

winterstinks, I just tire of all the union bashing, and blaming public sector workers for all our woes.... Big picture, it's been going on for years, slowly losing jobs overseas, continued tax breaks for corporations doing better than ever over past ten years.... and we focus on our middle class..... how much lost tax revenue has finally caught up to Janesville with GM leaving.... I know, it was all the unions.... now that they are almost gone, your next and not just winter is going to stink...

Winterstinks,you said it all .... damn union schools... Less taxes,boy really sounds good... you hit them all....would have really hit home for me had you been able to inclue liberal, socialism and then topped it off with freedom somehow.... that would have really been something..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thanks for the link. If I calculated correctly (someone check me!) then the average for the state was $12,978 per pupil while Janesville was $11,974. So we are spending $1000 less per pupil than the state average.

Sorry, I meant ShariF.

Billie: Try this: http://dpi.wi.gov/sfs/cmpcst.html I looked at the single year reports at the bottom of the page. If I'm reading this correctly it looks like the 2009/2010 per pupil cost was $11,974.

ShariF, school boards have made it difficult to find budget numbers over the last year or 2. A couple years ago, the school board posted total budget figures as well as student enrollment that were easily found, but no longer. The last time I saw those figures, it was before 4 year old Kindergarten started, so those kids weren't included. Then, the school system spent $111 million on 10,250 students. for almost $11,000 per student. Currently, that is the '10 - '11 budget, all I can find is the following article stating that the school district intended to spend about $112 million on the same number of students which now includs 586 4-year-olds. So, now that they count the 4-year-olds in the total enrollment, the cost per pupil is around $10,500 or so. But if we exclude 4-year-olds and the much smaller amount of money per student spent on them, you can see that my original figure is much closer to the truth, though it does seem as though I over-estimated the cost per pupil somewhat, though not excessively. Adding the 4-year-olds is an interesting accounting trick. It makes the cost per pupil number look smaller than it really is.

Here's a link to that article I mentioned, http://gazettextra.com/news/2010/aug/31/...

This is a link to the article that has the 4-year-old numbers in it from last January, http://gazettextra.com/news/2011/jan/29/...

This is an interesting chart that I stumbled upon. It shows cost per student by state compared with graduation rate and Wisconsin seems to be getting the "most for the money" in the nation!
http://edmoney.newamerica.net/node/36914...

Billie, where do you get that $12,000 number? The info I found on-line has much lower numbers, but the info isn't dated, so I don't know how old it is. One site said "The Janesville School District spends $9,903 per pupil in current expenditures."
Another said $8940 for Janesville with $10427 as the Wisconsin average (making our district look very low cost).

There's another reason not mentioned above that helps explain why Save Janesville Schools is having so little success. It's the fact that the school system already spends more than $12,000 per student. If they can't educate our students on such a generous budget, why would anyone think that things will improve by giving them more? More money is not what our school system needs.

How about this? Why don't all Janesville residents just directly deposit their entire payroll check into the Janesville School bank account? And when you die - just will it all to the schools.

No more money Janesvillian --- is that direct enough -- NO MORE MONEY. Enrollement is down, teacher and administartion benefits up.... no more money..... the taxpayer well is dry....

Thanks for the idea! Actually, I think that house idea would fit really well with the 16:49 group raising money for homeless teens. We did consider a megaraffle, which is done in Quincy, IL by their Catholic Schools, but we decided that we probably couldn't sell enough $100 tickets to make it work.
We have known from the start that we couldn't raise this amount of money from holding fundraisers like the pasta dinner. We wanted to host a few of these events to raise awareness, as much as to raise money. The only way for us to reach our goal is for the entire community to support us through direct donations or money they raise themselves through sponsoring a fundraiser (like the girl who sold cupcakes and the Karate America kids).

but....but....but....the children....

The properties will be purchased with specific funds originally obtained from federal programs, so they cannot be diverted to the school district (which, in case you didn't understand, is a SEPARATE TAXING BODY from the city anyway).
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Tax foreclosures of property are in effect donations to the foreclosing municipal body, but they don't really amount to much in the scheme of a multi-million dollar budget. The "simple" solution is to cover the necessary expenses of the schools through fair taxation of the population. Somehow, this idea which is in fact simple and fair has become an absolutely horrifying idea to some people. But you could raise the necessary funds, all the millions needed, with only modest increases in individual property taxes, particularly taking into account the tax and other revenue cuts the state implemented so that it could chop the shared revenue program in the first place. Back in Tommy Thompson's day, that shared revenue program was billed as property tax relief. Well, guess what? If you cut the relief program, property taxes have to make up the difference. This is something that adults have always known would have to happen.

Good idea, Oreally. The city will be purchasing five tax foreclosed properties soon. Why not donate all sale proceeds to the school and city budgets? The gains are much greater from tax foreclosed properties than from bank foreclosed properties.

"Save Janesville Schools held a benefit pasta dinner Sunday that organizers said drew about 90 people."

***

Clearly pasta dinners aren't going to save the schools. Thinking locally, there are a lot of bank-owned properties in Janesville. Perhaps SJS could persuade a bank to donate one of those properties, which it could then raffle off. Now that would raise some money.