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At the January 14, 2004 Board of Education work session on the 2004-05 budget, the administration estimated that there will be about $75,000 shortfall in funding for the fine-arts program and then disclosed that the total program costs will be about $160,000 for that year. LPSF probably would be unable to meet all of its three-year funding commitment of $100,000 each year for 2003-04 as well as 2004-05. ICAN attempted to identify the planned and actual multiyear revenues and costs for that program. Our inquiries to central administration on January 21 confirmed the lack of readily-available program-budgeting information for this and other LPS programs. Of course, cost-benefit analyses and other forms of program evaluation depend upon such information. On February 12 ICAN was informed that the CAFÉ Program 2002-03 costs actually amounted to $187,683.65, which was $65,293.65 (53%) over the proposed budget. The actual revenue sources for 2002-03 were $100,000 from LPSF and $87,683.65 from LPS funds. LPSF provided less than $15,000 in 2003-04 and nothing thereafter for the Centennial fine-arts program. For the past three school years (2002-05) Centennial has spent over $500,000 total on a fine-arts program that now has an ongoing annual cost of about $160,000 from LPS revenues that district officials decided to not make available to the other LPS schools. ICAN still believes that those precious funds should not have been used for the Centennial fine-arts program rather than for the basics remediation (reading, writing, and mathematics) that is needed by so many below-grade-level students in Littleton Public Schools. Centennial has been one of the lowest-performing LPS elementary schools for many years. The overall decline in 2002-03 in academic achievement as measured by CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) scores may not have been caused by the emphasis upon fine arts. However, that year's loss certainly raised questions about the so-called cause-and-effect theory that adding more fine arts will cause increased student learning in core subjects. Comparisons of the CSAP grade-level test results for 2002 (before) and 2005 (three years after) show no overall improvement in academic achievement (59% average proficiency for seven tests for both years). The Centennial Elementary School average for CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) 2005 Reading grades 3-5 (next table below) was 66% proficient or advanced, which was a moderate loss from the 72% average in 2004.
Key: A = Advanced, P = Proficient, PP = Partially Proficient, U = Unsatisfactory, S = Students. The school average for CSAP 2005 Writing grades 3-5 (next table below) was 54% proficient or advanced, which was a small gain from the 52% average in 2004.
Key: A = Advanced, P = Proficient, PP = Partially Proficient, U = Unsatisfactory, S = Students. The school average for CSAP 2005 Math grade 5 (next table below) was 54% proficient or advanced, which was a large loss from the 68% average in 2004 for grade 5.
Key: A = Advanced, P = Proficient, PP = Partially Proficient, U = Unsatisfactory, S = Students.
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