SAMPLE BUDGET
Budgets are complicated so let's start with a simple example so you can quickly see how this works.
In this example we're looking at a school with grades 3-8 and 240 students. It's been working with eight classes of thirty students each, plus two floating classroom aides. (This example completely ignores specialty staff paid for with Title I funds and the like.)
In the new system each teacher has two classes of twenty students each (so forty per classroom teacher); one group is doing computer lessons while the other is with the teacher. There are also three Computer Lab Aides who help forty students at a time in the computer lab. (Don't worry: we're currently beta testing the system in a public kindergarten and it's simple enough for them to use.)
So far, you've reduced functional class size from 30 to 20 without changing your budget. But you're also adding in the bilingual functionality, switching to a schedule so efficient it eliminates homework through Tier Three, and adopting a mastery-based progress philosophy that moves everyone faster while actually strengthening academic standards. Oh, and students will now start studying Technology and a Second Language around age seven; that's all included.
Thus you can vastly improve your school system on your current budget. But if you're facing a budget crisis, consider bartering with us for lessons by becoming a Partner School.
