Riverdale School District third richest in the country
According to this story, it's "the only school district outside Westchester County, N.Y., or Fairfield County, Conn., among the 10 wealthiest districts." It's a comfort to know that Little Lord Paulson's kids won't be "food insecure" at recess.
| Posted at 8:54 AM | Permalink |
|
Comments (13)
"Food insecurity", Oh SO much more socially acceptable than HUNGRY!
Posted by portland native | June 8, 2012 9:08 AM
Sounds like a great place for "affordable" housing. Just think of all the good education it would bring to the children!
Posted by Nolo | June 8, 2012 9:35 AM
They definitely need some "equity."
Posted by Jack Bog | June 8, 2012 9:36 AM
It's actually a list, not of the richest school districts, but of the school districts with the highest average household income. (That being said, the district itself certainly isn't suffering.) Unusually among the districts on the list, Riverdale has no business tax base at all. The district has only three enterprises, other than home occupations, that might be called businesses: Lewis & Clark College, River View Cemetery, and the school district itself. Its cost per student is about 15% more than Portland's, and it's able to provide one teacher for every 14 students, compared to 1:17 for Portland.
Posted by Isaac Laquedem | June 8, 2012 9:42 AM
I thought there was a statute that all school districts were to be funded equally? I seem to remember people in Portland being upset that some of their property taxes were funding schools in other parts of the state.
Posted by Jon | June 8, 2012 9:55 AM
Jon, based on sad experience, some districts are more equal than others. For my entire adult life, Texas's public school budget is declared unconstitutional for that precise reason. Apparently, the residents of Highland Park and The Woodlands have issues with a penny of their taxes going to pay for schools in the Rio Grande Valley or in Abilene, especially if the kids in those schools have a skintone darker than Edgar Winter's.
Posted by Texas Triffid Ranch | June 8, 2012 10:02 AM
I wonder what portion of the difference in cost-per-student and student-teacher ratio is attributable to a higher portion of special needs kids in PPS over Riverdale covering things like different languages, learning disabilities, etc.
Posted by PdxMark | June 8, 2012 10:15 AM
Some part, likely, though those factors should make Portland a higher-cost district. 9% of PPS students have English as a second language (none at Riverdale), 16% are special education (11% at Riverdale), 43% get free or reduced-price lunch (none at Riverdale), and 15% are talented and gifted (only 8% at Riverdale).
Posted by Isaac Laquedem | June 8, 2012 10:35 AM
Fact of the Day: Nancy Hamilton, the "public schools advocate" who wrote that odious op-ed last week ("mindset of abundance"), yanked her kid out of PPS and pays tuition to send the kid to Riverdale.
Posted by Little Bird from PPS | June 8, 2012 11:57 AM
I live in the Riverdale District and am past-president of the Riverdale Foundation. Riverdale receives exactly the same state funding per student as every other district. The district receives a lot of support from its foundation and it also has a decent number of tuition-paying students from outside the district. It's a tight-knit community that supports the public schools. Residents have more dough (on average) than in Portland, but its dumb to blame Riverdale for what a mis-managed train wreck PPS is. Making Riverdale crappy won't make PPS good.
Posted by The original Bob W | June 8, 2012 12:58 PM
Good for Riverdale!
Posted by RicN | June 8, 2012 3:42 PM
Why wouldn't Riverdale be rich? They've got Archie, Jughead, Veronica and Betty.
Do you have any idea how much those kids get in allowance?
But they're not overachievers. They've been in high school for over 50 years.
Posted by John D | June 8, 2012 7:39 PM
And ev'rybody meets at the soda shop!
Posted by Mojo | June 9, 2012 8:22 AM