October 14, 2025 • 12 mins
COMMON SENSE BROKE DOWN SCHOOL FUNDING And the numbers are kind of eye popping when you see it all written out. Kelly Caufield joins me today at 1 to discuss the details, which you can find here.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The common Sense Institute, And I sang the praises of
the common Sense Institute earlier on the show today, and
now that I've got Kelly Cawfield, the executive director of
common Sense on the show, I want to reiterate this, Kelly.
One of the things that you guys do so incredibly
well in all of your research and your papers and
all of that stuff, it is never written in legalies
(00:21):
or sort of language that is hard to parse or understand.
It is accessible to everyone, and therefore it is useful.
And that is not something I can say about every
think tank. They some it's a little too lofty.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thank you so much, Mandy at the Common Sense Institute.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
That's really our mission to.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Bring complex data or simplify digestible way so that Colorado
policymakers and voters can better understand our economy and the
trends of important issues like education.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So let's talk about this recent paper you did, Dollars
in Data twenty twenty five on education. First of all,
is this something you do annually? You just kind of
take the look, see or what inspired this paper?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right about, you know, the back to school window.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
We like to release this report. We do that annually.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I think this is the seventh or eighth edition of
this report. Or we're trying to show long term trends
of student funding, enrollment, and performance.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
So I got to tell you, I was a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was kind of surprised at how much money we
are actually spending per student in Colorado. Let's let's kind
of start with that. First of all, where does this
money come from? I mean, we could we could do
a quick primer on, you know, how schools are funded,
because people have a misconception here in Colorado that if
you live in an area with very high property values
(01:45):
and you pay a ton of property taxes, that your
school districts get more money. And that is not accurate.
So how where does the money come from and and everything?
Let's talk about it in terms of per pupil, right,
So we'll just start with per pupil spending, what is
it and what makes it up?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And in Common Sense Institute's Report, Mandy, we're.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Trying to look at things holistically.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So this report is looking at all of the revenue
that comes into fund public schools.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And there's really three primary sources.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
That's local revenue, that's state revenue, and then it's federal revenue.
So when we're talking about local revenue, that's coming from
property taxes generally, and that also includes mill levy overrides
and mills for bonded indebtedness. That's a little harder to describe,
but that's the local piece, mainly property taxes. When you
(02:41):
talk about state revenue, those are the funds collected by
our state government that are appropriated to school districts, and
that includes the per pupil contributions from our state Education's
fund and that's a you know, large part of the.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Funding from the Colorado.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Budget for education flows through that state education fund. And
then finally, that third component is the federal revenue, and
that's of course money coming from Washington that's distributed to
school districts that either goes directly to the district or
funnels through our Colorado.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Department of Education.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So that's three different funding sources.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
What does that come down to when we're looking at
the total for that for each student?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Right, So our analysis shows her pupil revenue average is
about twenty thousand per student, and that is when you
aggregate the revenue across local, state, and federal sources, and
that has significantly increased. When we look at the growth
(03:45):
in revenue, it's grown over twenty percent since twenty twenty,
rising from fourteen point five billion to about seventeen point
six billion, and overall spendings also increasing at twenty four percent,
So significant growth in K twelve spending, while we are
seeing declines in enrollment, which I'm happy to unpack.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well, let's let's stop there for just a second, but
I want to kind of skip to the other part
of this that I found so mind blowing is like,
you know, most people think, oh, that's good, We've got
more spending. That means more money's going in the classroom.
It's going to go directly towards student achievement.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You're going to get.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Math support, reading support, You're going to have all these
people that are going to be working with all these students.
But that's not at all what has been happening. The
biggest areas of growth have been in administration. That is
super frustrating.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
That's great. I think a focus more on our teachers
and instruction matters so much.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I'm you know, I'm a daughter two public school teachers.
Really believe in public education here. But you're right when
we're looking at the trends over time, administrative growth outpaces
instructional spending.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So from since today, since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
The number administrators and non teaching staff has risen by
more than thirty percent, and that's compared to less than
ten percent a nine percent increase in teachers. So that's
nine percent growth in teachers while you saw administrators and
non teaching staff grow by thirty percent.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
It's a real disparity there.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Now, have you guys did any digging, because I was
trying to think of valid reasons for that kind of
explosion and administration. One of them could be just managing
edicts from the state. That feels like a full time job, right,
But why is there been such a growth? That's what
I'm really trying to figure out. Did you guys get
into any of that. If that's outside the sphere of
(05:40):
the study, that's fine.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I was just curious.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know, this report does not dig into those details,
and I think we should in a follow up study.
But in previous you know, analyzes that I've seen from
the state, the Colorado Department of Education, you know, they
do say, hey, there's been a large number of program
created by the Colorado legislature that has additional reporting requirements.
(06:05):
Think some of those are probably good, but I do
think that's driving up some of the administrative spending. You're
also seeing our students sadly needing more support, so mental
health counselors, social workers. Having more people in the building
that are non instructional is a decision that the districts
are making, and I'm sympathetic to some of those, but
(06:28):
still believe when you're seeing the proficiency scores that Colorado
is seeing, I would suggest instructional staff is something that
matters the most.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I agree, and you know, we can have a longer
conversation some other time about this new focus as mental
health being the number one thing in schools.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I don't think. I don't like that. We'll talk about
that later.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I do want to talk about declining enrollment because that
is a significant problem, and we've already kind of seen
some of the issues with declining enrollment in that we're
now closing the schools. Districts are sort of moving, and
I actually have a lot of sympathy for school districts
in this way because neighborhoods change. You know, we like
(07:10):
the neighborhood I moved into. Was mostly senior people when
we moved in, and it's kind of turned over over
the years we've been here. But and you have to
kind of move schools to go where the people are,
and that's a huge issue.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
But what does the overall enrollment numbers look like in
Colorado now?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So Colorado's K twelve enrollment has now fallen for five
straight years. When we looked across every school district, we
have about one hundred and eighty school districts, one seventy
eight to be precise, but we found that one hundred
and sixteen of our one hundred and seventy eight school
districts they lost enrollment in this most recent school.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Year of twenty four to twenty five.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And that's including you know, people may say, oh, that's
the small districts.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
No, it's including the nine.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Largest districts in Colorado. And it's a bit of a
mixed bag when you look at those. But the ones
that really stand out to me for significant declines and
enrollment Jefferson County D eleven in Colorado Springs, which is
one of the largest, the largest school districts. I believe
in that region they're seeing particular challenges in declining enrollment.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So I'd like to just want to point out some
stuff about that because people would be like, what does
it matter, Then we don't have to spend as much.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Money on schools.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But when it comes down to it, as the student
body shrink, what happens first is the loss of programs.
That if you don't have enough kids to participate in band,
or in theater, or in chorus, or in wrestling or whatever,
then you lose those programs.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
So this matters a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Now, did you guys do any sort of digging into
why we're losing students? Are they going to private school?
Are we not having as many kids? Which I know
that in Colorado people are kidless here more than other states,
So any guesses on that?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Kelly right, And we did a fertility study showing significant
declines in fertility, which has huge implications for cage twelve
and higher education.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So that is a part of the story.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
The Colorado Department of Education does not track private school enrollment,
so that is a harder.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Data point to parse out.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
We are looking at some census data metrics to try
to better unpack that story.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I do think another part of.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It is homeschooling is something that some families are I
think particularly interested in. Something that we did look at
though in this report is we looked at how does
declining enrollment change by the age of the student, And
I find this interesting side younger children, declining enrollment is
especially prevalent with the younger children. So these younger grades
(09:57):
in elementary school, you know, student parents are making different decisions,
either private schools or doing more holdbacks or potentially homeschooling.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
At these younger ages.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Interestingly enough, where enrollment actually increased since twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Was in high school.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It was specifically in grades ten through twelve, So that
might wow thing interesting to further study that maybe the
larger high schools, offering more amenities and extra curriculars are
more attractive to some parents, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And also I have multiple friends who have homeschooled their
kids K through eight. But when you get into high school,
either the kid wanted to have a quote normal high
school experience, or the kid wanted to take advanced sort
of chemistry, you know, physics, those sort of higher level coursework,
and the parents were like, Okay, I'm not necessarily equipped.
So I wonder if that homeschooling pipeline going K through
(10:53):
eight and then.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Sending kids to PubL High School.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I wonder if that has an impact as well.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yes, I think it might.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know, the real star I have to say for
enrollment is.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
In northern Colorado.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Greeley school districts is seeing huge expansions. Common Sense did
a report on Greeley because it is one.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Of the higher fertility rates in the state.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
People are having babies and Greeley and the public school systems.
Really I'm benefiting from that and from that trend. Well.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Kelly Cawfield, Executive director of the Common Sense Institute, thanks
so much for your time today. Thanks for this report.
It's very very eye opening. And again I said it
to my listeners earlier, there's so much data in this
like two page, easy to read, easy to understand. It
will take you no time at all to read the
whole thing. It's not like a big, dry, boring report.
(11:47):
So I would urge you and I keep telling people
this is why school board races matter.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
School board races matter so so much.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Kelly Caawfield, thanks so much for making this happen over
there at Common Sense.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Thank you, Mandy, and I did want to say.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Later this month common Sense Institute, we'll be launching a
dashboard where we will be digitizing this data and your
viewers can search by school district and better understand the
trends and the school finance of their district and how
it compares to the state average. So more there at
Common Sense Institute coo dot org.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
We'll revisit when you come back, all right, Thanks Kelly,
The common Sense Institute, And I sang the praises of
the common Sense Institute earlier on the show today, and
now that I've got Kelly Cawfield, the executive director of
common Sense on the show, I want to reiterate this, Kelly.
One of the things that you guys do so incredibly
well in all of your research and your papers and
all of that stuff, it is never written in legalies
(00:21):
or sort of language that is hard to parse or understand.
It is accessible to everyone, and therefore it is useful.
And that is not something I can say about every
think tank. They some it's a little too lofty.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thank you so much, Mandy at the Common Sense Institute.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
That's really our mission to.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Bring complex data or simplify digestible way so that Colorado
policymakers and voters can better understand our economy and the
trends of important issues like education.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So let's talk about this recent paper you did, Dollars
in Data twenty twenty five on education. First of all,
is this something you do annually? You just kind of
take the look, see or what inspired this paper?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right about, you know, the back to school window.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
We like to release this report. We do that annually.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I think this is the seventh or eighth edition of
this report. Or we're trying to show long term trends
of student funding, enrollment, and performance.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
So I got to tell you, I was a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was kind of surprised at how much money we
are actually spending per student in Colorado. Let's let's kind
of start with that. First of all, where does this
money come from? I mean, we could we could do
a quick primer on, you know, how schools are funded,
because people have a misconception here in Colorado that if
you live in an area with very high property values
(01:45):
and you pay a ton of property taxes, that your
school districts get more money. And that is not accurate.
So how where does the money come from and and everything?
Let's talk about it in terms of per pupil, right,
So we'll just start with per pupil spending, what is
it and what makes it up?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And in Common Sense Institute's Report, Mandy, we're.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Trying to look at things holistically.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
So this report is looking at all of the revenue
that comes into fund public schools.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And there's really three primary sources.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
That's local revenue, that's state revenue, and then it's federal revenue.
So when we're talking about local revenue, that's coming from
property taxes generally, and that also includes mill levy overrides
and mills for bonded indebtedness. That's a little harder to describe,
but that's the local piece, mainly property taxes. When you
(02:41):
talk about state revenue, those are the funds collected by
our state government that are appropriated to school districts, and
that includes the per pupil contributions from our state Education's
fund and that's a you know, large part of the.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Funding from the Colorado.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Budget for education flows through that state education fund. And
then finally, that third component is the federal revenue, and
that's of course money coming from Washington that's distributed to
school districts that either goes directly to the district or
funnels through our Colorado.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Department of Education.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So that's three different funding sources.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
What does that come down to when we're looking at
the total for that for each student?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Right, So our analysis shows her pupil revenue average is
about twenty thousand per student, and that is when you
aggregate the revenue across local, state, and federal sources, and
that has significantly increased. When we look at the growth
(03:45):
in revenue, it's grown over twenty percent since twenty twenty,
rising from fourteen point five billion to about seventeen point
six billion, and overall spendings also increasing at twenty four percent,
So significant growth in K twelve spending, while we are
seeing declines in enrollment, which I'm happy to unpack.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well, let's let's stop there for just a second, but
I want to kind of skip to the other part
of this that I found so mind blowing is like,
you know, most people think, oh, that's good, We've got
more spending. That means more money's going in the classroom.
It's going to go directly towards student achievement.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You're going to get.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Math support, reading support, You're going to have all these
people that are going to be working with all these students.
But that's not at all what has been happening. The
biggest areas of growth have been in administration. That is
super frustrating.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
That's great. I think a focus more on our teachers
and instruction matters so much.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I'm you know, I'm a daughter two public school teachers.
Really believe in public education here. But you're right when
we're looking at the trends over time, administrative growth outpaces
instructional spending.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So from since today, since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
The number administrators and non teaching staff has risen by
more than thirty percent, and that's compared to less than
ten percent a nine percent increase in teachers. So that's
nine percent growth in teachers while you saw administrators and
non teaching staff grow by thirty percent.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
It's a real disparity there.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Now, have you guys did any digging, because I was
trying to think of valid reasons for that kind of
explosion and administration. One of them could be just managing
edicts from the state. That feels like a full time job, right,
But why is there been such a growth? That's what
I'm really trying to figure out. Did you guys get
into any of that. If that's outside the sphere of
(05:40):
the study, that's fine.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I was just curious.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know, this report does not dig into those details,
and I think we should in a follow up study.
But in previous you know, analyzes that I've seen from
the state, the Colorado Department of Education, you know, they
do say, hey, there's been a large number of program
created by the Colorado legislature that has additional reporting requirements.
(06:05):
Think some of those are probably good, but I do
think that's driving up some of the administrative spending. You're
also seeing our students sadly needing more support, so mental
health counselors, social workers. Having more people in the building
that are non instructional is a decision that the districts
are making, and I'm sympathetic to some of those, but
(06:28):
still believe when you're seeing the proficiency scores that Colorado
is seeing, I would suggest instructional staff is something that
matters the most.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
I agree, and you know, we can have a longer
conversation some other time about this new focus as mental
health being the number one thing in schools.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
I don't think. I don't like that. We'll talk about
that later.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I do want to talk about declining enrollment because that
is a significant problem, and we've already kind of seen
some of the issues with declining enrollment in that we're
now closing the schools. Districts are sort of moving, and
I actually have a lot of sympathy for school districts
in this way because neighborhoods change. You know, we like
(07:10):
the neighborhood I moved into. Was mostly senior people when
we moved in, and it's kind of turned over over
the years we've been here. But and you have to
kind of move schools to go where the people are,
and that's a huge issue.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
But what does the overall enrollment numbers look like in
Colorado now?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
So Colorado's K twelve enrollment has now fallen for five
straight years. When we looked across every school district, we
have about one hundred and eighty school districts, one seventy
eight to be precise, but we found that one hundred
and sixteen of our one hundred and seventy eight school
districts they lost enrollment in this most recent school.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Year of twenty four to twenty five.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
And that's including you know, people may say, oh, that's
the small districts.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
No, it's including the nine.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Largest districts in Colorado. And it's a bit of a
mixed bag when you look at those. But the ones
that really stand out to me for significant declines and
enrollment Jefferson County D eleven in Colorado Springs, which is
one of the largest, the largest school districts. I believe
in that region they're seeing particular challenges in declining enrollment.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So I'd like to just want to point out some
stuff about that because people would be like, what does
it matter, Then we don't have to spend as much.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Money on schools.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But when it comes down to it, as the student
body shrink, what happens first is the loss of programs.
That if you don't have enough kids to participate in band,
or in theater, or in chorus, or in wrestling or whatever,
then you lose those programs.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
So this matters a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Now, did you guys do any sort of digging into
why we're losing students? Are they going to private school?
Are we not having as many kids? Which I know
that in Colorado people are kidless here more than other states,
So any guesses on that?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Kelly right, And we did a fertility study showing significant
declines in fertility, which has huge implications for cage twelve
and higher education.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So that is a part of the story.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
The Colorado Department of Education does not track private school enrollment,
so that is a harder.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Data point to parse out.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
We are looking at some census data metrics to try
to better unpack that story.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I do think another part of.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It is homeschooling is something that some families are I
think particularly interested in. Something that we did look at
though in this report is we looked at how does
declining enrollment change by the age of the student, And
I find this interesting side younger children, declining enrollment is
especially prevalent with the younger children. So these younger grades
(09:57):
in elementary school, you know, student parents are making different decisions,
either private schools or doing more holdbacks or potentially homeschooling.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
At these younger ages.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Interestingly enough, where enrollment actually increased since twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Was in high school.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It was specifically in grades ten through twelve, So that
might wow thing interesting to further study that maybe the
larger high schools, offering more amenities and extra curriculars are
more attractive to some parents, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
And also I have multiple friends who have homeschooled their
kids K through eight. But when you get into high school,
either the kid wanted to have a quote normal high
school experience, or the kid wanted to take advanced sort
of chemistry, you know, physics, those sort of higher level coursework,
and the parents were like, Okay, I'm not necessarily equipped.
So I wonder if that homeschooling pipeline going K through
(10:53):
eight and then.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Sending kids to PubL High School.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I wonder if that has an impact as well.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yes, I think it might.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know, the real star I have to say for
enrollment is.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
In northern Colorado.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Greeley school districts is seeing huge expansions. Common Sense did
a report on Greeley because it is one.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Of the higher fertility rates in the state.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
People are having babies and Greeley and the public school systems.
Really I'm benefiting from that and from that trend. Well.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Kelly Cawfield, Executive director of the Common Sense Institute, thanks
so much for your time today. Thanks for this report.
It's very very eye opening. And again I said it
to my listeners earlier, there's so much data in this
like two page, easy to read, easy to understand. It
will take you no time at all to read the
whole thing. It's not like a big, dry, boring report.
(11:47):
So I would urge you and I keep telling people
this is why school board races matter.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
School board races matter so so much.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Kelly Caawfield, thanks so much for making this happen over
there at Common Sense.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Thank you, Mandy, and I did want to say.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Later this month common Sense Institute, we'll be launching a
dashboard where we will be digitizing this data and your
viewers can search by school district and better understand the
trends and the school finance of their district and how
it compares to the state average. So more there at
Common Sense Institute coo dot org.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
We'll revisit when you come back, all right, Thanks Kelly,
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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