From AFP – ”

When considering school district override questions for maintenance and operations (M&O), AFP-Arizona does two things:

1)  We do the math to see how much money is already available within those districts, and how much money the district could potentially get into its classrooms, to have adequate classroom facilities and to pay good teachers what they’re worth.  In most cases, districts already have enough money to put two teachers in every classroom — one teacher, and one special education instructor (not necessarily based physically in the same classroom) to work with the handful of IEPs in an average classroom.  Unfortunately, the available money has trouble actually trickling down into classrooms, with too much spent on administration, soft capital, and a wide range of non-classroom services.  For (much) more on this topic, scroll down to the section below on “AFP-AZ Guide to Wasted Money in AZ’s K-12 School System.”

2)  We compare per-pupil funding in a given district with the per-pupil funding for charter schools.  The average district has more per-pupil resources than a charter school does and most districts have significantly larger student populations, meaning that they should be able to achieve economies of scale to offset greater regulatory burdens.  If a school district spends significantly more per pupil than a charter school does, that should be a red flag in the mind of the taxpayers and voters in that district.

School District Capital Bond Measures

When evaluating bond measures, AFP-Arizona never issues a..”
Read more: http://americansforprosperity.org/arizona/legislativealerts/2013-guide-to-school-district-overrides-bond-measures/#ixzz2jjAnxXfN“