Friday, November 17, 2006

K-12 Enrollment Down in Florida for the First Time


There has been some rumblings recently about the dearth of expected school increases here in the Sunshine State. Apparently, the state has been attempting to keep this fact in the closet (almost Mark Foley-like!), but after some badgering by some dilligent reporters at the Associated Press, the real figures are coming in.

Bottom line: from October 2005 to October 2006, the state lost more than 2000 students. In the past 50 years, this has never happened.

Note that the state is also attempting to show an actual gain, by comparing the current figures to the end of the school year of 2005 - that's not "apples to apples" because it doesn't take into account the number of dropouts during the year. Nice try, though! I wonder: did the persons trying to push this fictitious "gain" have previous employment at Enron?

"A loss would be historic in a state that has added 34,845 to 65,187 more students in kindergarten through 12th grade annually for the most recent three academic years. A slight gain would still be a dramatic slide.

Either way, the shrinking student enrollment in a state that officially counted 2,641,598 students in mid-October means a $204 million loss to school districts this year, The Associated Press reported Thursday. The implications for the economy may be far greater.

To put it another way, the state fell short of its projections for new students by 48,375.

"A whole school district is not showing up," said Bruce Tonjes, Polk County schools' associate superintendent. "It's scary, isn't it?"
"

And we all have to wonder: why did this happen? Could it be.....HIGH housing costs?

"The dramatic drop was evident in August when districts of massive growth, such as Hillsborough County, showed dramatic declines. By early September, soaring housing costs and insurance rates and last year's spate of hurricanes were blamed for keeping working families with children from moving to Florida.

No one has come up with any better reasons as the state tallies numbers from its official October statewide count. The focus is now on just how great the loss is and what it means in dollars.

"No one in a hundred years is ever going to expect this state to be down," said Jim Hamilton, Hillsborough's chief officer for district compliance. "

With this in mind:

Has the word got out about how expensive housing (prices, taxes on those prices, and insurance) is down here?

- Or - (in a derivative of the science fiction that has been quoted by the realtors for the past 5 years):

Is it that everybody still wants to move to Florida, it's just that now they can't sell their previous house?
Also, with less working families moving here, who will they find next to subsidize the current residents of the Sunshine State?


Full Article

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

MOM & POP had to put the kids to WORK, and there wasn't any time for that there fancy school'n stuff

Forget about that go to school, get good grades, and get a job at Wal-mart stuff.....

The rent has to be paid TODAY!!!

Besides, the fancy car the kid had to drive to school, he NOW drives to work....

Salvation is on the way...The Democrats are going to raise the minimum wage, so the kid can pay for his own gas NOW!!!

Anonymous said...

It makes you wonder - as enrollments contract, are they going to start closing schools? I think that was the whole point of the school-grading system: to shut down the failing schools.

Now they have a financial incentive to ship the bad kids to the better schools.

Wonderful.

Anonymous said...

http://www.forsakencraft.com/David_lereah_pinochio.jpg


POP!!!

enjoy

Anonymous said...

Awesome! At the current NAR convention in New Orleans this week, a lot of realtors must be getting accidently poked in the eye.

Which brings to mind this question: If a group of realt-whores get together for a game of cards, would it be known as,

"Liar's Poker"?

:)

Anonymous said...

Long bumpy road to the bottom

||||||“‘We have such a dramatic inventory glut in Florida - and such a disparity between prices and incomes - that there’s more work to be done,’ said Michael D. Larson, an analyst in Jupiter. ‘I don’t expect foreclosure activity to cool, or pricing weakness to end, until at least 2008.’|||||

With the housing market cooling, it most certainly will generate less revenue for the state sales tax agenda.....much of this money goes to education.....
Remember JEB saying, the school initative[classroom size] referendum, would be SSOOO large it'll block out the sun!!!!

Forecasting shrinking revenues, based on construction sales tax, & dock stamps, & increasing need for greater teacher head count per student, should make a nice mess out of all this!!!!

Just more gasoline on the Florida inferno!!!

Anonymous said...

Gas prices have increased one aspect of public school numbers, there's a bit of a crunch on the number of available school buses in Hillsborough county, a few percent more kinds are riding the bus than last year, despite enrollment being down.

Lander said...

The same thing is happening in California (that other bubble market). The LA Times reported this in August 2006:

"Statewide, public school enrollment was down slightly this year, for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. And though officials aren't quite sure of all the reasons behind the drop, they are sure that the cost of housing is one of them."

Anonymous said...

At least you have "south-southern california" to keep your schools full.

Too bad they only speak Spanish.

Anonymous said...

What a surprise! The 2 states with the most regressive property tax systems (Prop 13 and Save Our Homes) in the United States are now both faced with the prospect that young families have no interest in living there. First-time buyers are finally wising up to the "subsidize our old-timers" mentality that permeates these 2 states.

What goes around comes around. Congrats to FLA and CAL on your selfish "success".

Anonymous said...

More generational rip-off (in addition to Soc.Sec.) that will soon come around (after going around).

Anonymous said...

Crazy G.[eezer] says:

Who needs them stinking kids anyway....
That's all they want is their inheritance, from me....
Besides, all them learn'n schools, just cost to much...
We need more rich Baby-b00mers, to pay my social security....Them kids, ain't old enough to have a job yet...
The "G" generation [G = geezer], are going to suck the well dry.....
Let them little rug rats, dig they own well, and see how much money they can get out of their grand-children....
We already stuck them with $28,000 debt, the day they were born..
And GW, is going to stick them with >>>> MORE <<<<<
A vote for GW, is a vote for "" G "" generation!!!

GREEDY, "yes"....GEEZER, "yes", GERIATRIC, "yes".....

Does Crazy have any redeeming qualities... = ""NO ""

xSparta said...

Did anyone see this article in the St. Pete Times on Sunday. The developers and City Council were warned by concerned citizens and small beach merchants this would happen..................They did not listen.



http://www.sptimes.com/2006/11/19/Tampabay/Bay_s_home_boom_sudde.shtml

xSparta said...

Sorry, that was the wrong link in my reply above.

. I was looking for the "Condo Mania" article about Clearwater Beach but can't find it. In essance all of the small hotels have been knocked down to clear the way for condos. Now that the condo market has dried up, there stands piles of rubble and weeds in empty lots on Clearwater Beach.
This is starting to deter tourists from visiting including locals............. like myself!

Anonymous said...

What happened to the thousand new residents a day moving to FL? I never could substantiate that number, but then I guess most of them left their kids with friends and neighbors back home when they left. gordo

Anonymous said...

Stupid school system, don't teach kids nothin about history, and the economics.....

"NOT" one person in "A MILLION" understands, the CIVIL WAR was lost because the Reb's printed too much Confederate "cheap" money...
Robert E. Lee, was supposedly quoted as saying: ""It takes more than a wagon load of money to buy a wagon load of supplies"

The Confederates had NO real money, [gold/silver] to trade with, so they printed paper money....
DUH!!! What is the U.S. doing NOW!!! Fighting another war...& Printing MONEY!!!!

DO they teach kids in school this????

I seriously doubt it!!!!

What do they teach those kids, when they go in those doors anyway????

What are we paying for???

You get your real education, when you hit the streets....

And the Florida Education sytem does NOT prepare them for that????

Anonymous said...

Clearwater is good for 3 things anymore:

1. Condos and more condos.
2. Horrid, Parking Lot-like Traffic.

(working off the "Palm Beach Model" to achieve #1 and #2)

and, of course...

3. Scientology.

Go "Tom-Kat"!

FL - Paradise Lost said...

GTAR (Tampa Realtors) just posted their October results - even with their under-reported numbers, it's looking pretty bad.

GTAR - October Report: http://www.gtar.org/mlsoct06.pdf

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Stivel Velasquez said...

For the first time, the Collier County School District is forecasting a decline in enrollment.That was the news Bob Spencer, executive director for financial services, told the Collier County School Board on Tuesday. march madness It came right after Spencer told the board that the district could expect to lose 410 students and about $3.31 million in full-time enrollment dollars in 2008-09.Collier County is not alone. State economists predicted last month that 8,000 fewer students arrived in Florida schools than anticipated. But that concerns school districts, whose budgets are predicated on the number of students sitting in classrooms.
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