Comparing+Two+Disricts

In comparing the two districts in this weeks assignment, I have found the following information:


 * || District 1 || District 2 ||  ||
 * Economically disadvantaged || 93.30% || 20.70% ||  ||
 * Refined ADA || 3893.754 || 4032.937 ||  ||
 * WADA || 5555.815 || 4794.076 ||  ||

In Texas, schools are largely funded through local property tax and state funding. The formula for funding is based on regular average daily attendance (ADA) and weighted average daily attendance (WADA). WADA assigns "weights" to sub-groups of students who have special needs since students with special educational needs are more expensive to educate. One of the special needs groups that is funded more heavily than regular students is the economically disadvantaged students group. In this example, District 1 has a lower ADA but a larger WADA because of the dramatically higher level of economically disadvantaged students enrolled in district one.

After input from my group, here is our group position statement about the two districts:

In Texas, schools are largely funded through local property tax and state funding. The formula for funding is based on regular average daily attendance (ADA) and weighted average daily attendance (WADA). WADA assigns "weights" to sub-groups of students who have special needs since students with special educational needs are more expensive to educate. District One has percentages of students in the special needs groups of Economically Disadvantaged, LEP, SPED, Bilingual, ESL, CTE and GT which are higher than the similarly sized district two. In this example, District 1 has a lower ADA but a larger WADA mostly because of the dramatically higher level of economically disadvantaged students enrolled in district one. Additionally, the higher rates of other weighted special groups contributes to the higher WADA of District One.