A job well done

Hats off to Eric Frazier of the Charlotte Observer and Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) for putting together lots of useful information on the CMS budget and daring to go where few have gone before: publishing per pupil expenditures — by school (See: Charlotte Observer Education Blog for story and budget sheets ). Frazier highlighted his work in his blog and as background for a series of education articles  on the CMS budget. This was a herculean effort and certainly not possible without the cooperation of CMS — which by the way needs to find nearly $100 million in cuts to balance its budget. In brief, Frazier’s work showed that a lot of money is going  to help needy students and low performing schools. However there is not much evidence to suggest that spending is helping to address the problems  — a topic for another time.  Still, I applaud both for their work. The transparency is refreshing and the information adds to the debate.  We can only hope such efforts are duplicated elsewhere.