Fairfax, doing more with less? Comparing MCPS to regional school systems.

The following information was originally posted to the Parents' Coalition blog on December 10, 2009.


This blog post is being re-posted as this subject of comparing MCPS to FCPS is in the news with the January 26, 2010, release of Montgomery County's Office of Legislative Oversight Report: Comparative Data on Montgomery County and Fairfax County.


The majority of "Section VIII Education" of the OLA report is based on the Washington Area Boards of Education (WABE) annual document shown below. However, the WABE document includes more information comparing Montgomery and Fairfax school systems than was included in the OLO Report.


For your information, the WABE report is provided once again.

December 10, 2009

The Washington Area Boards of Education has released their annual guide comparing the public school systems in the Washington, D.C. region. 

In this guide you can find out that:

• In FY09 MCPS had 139,276 students and Fairfax County Public Schools had 169,538 students (Page 14).
• In MCPS there are 23,421 students listed for Special Education Membership compared to 43,680 for Fairfax County Public Schools (Page 20).
• In MCPS the Cost per Pupil for FY 09 was $15,252 and for Fairfax it was $13,340 (Page 30).
• Montgomery County is the only county of the 9 shown where Cost per Pupil rose from FY09 to FY10 (Page 31).
• For FY10 Fairfax has 19 positions on its Leadership team, MCPS has 21(Pages 33-34).
• For FY 10 Fairfax has 160 positions for Management, MCPS has 289.7 (Pages 33-34).
• For FY 10 Fairfax has 135.5 Educational Specialists, MCPS has 196 (Pages 33-34).

Just comparing MCPS to Fairfax it appears that with more students, a higher percentage of ESOL students, and a larger Special Education population, Fairfax County Public Schools has less administration, higher SATs and smaller class sizes.

Take a look at the report for yourself, there is a lot more data to compare. 

Washington Area Boards of Education - FY 2010 WABE Guide