The most recent performance and spending records of Johnson County school districts serves as a good reminder that there is no relationship between high spending and high achievement. In fact, the two districts that spend the least happen to have the best outcomes on state assessments.
Students who read grade-appropriate material with full comprehension and usually perform accurately on all grade-level math tasks are best positioned for success in college and career. Disparate demographic compositions and achievement gaps distort districts’ average scores, so student cohorts must be separately compared. De Soto and Gardner-Edgerton have the highest and second-highest percentages of income-based cohorts attaining these levels in Reading and Math and also spend the least per-pupil on current operations (no capital or debt included).
The achievement gap for low income students is common across Kansas and there are also large variances in student body compositions across districts. For example, only 8.4% of Blue Valley students are considered low income (based on eligibility for free / reduced lunch) whereas as Shawnee Mission has 37.8% who qualify as low income; eligibility for free/reduced lunch is the official metric of “income” via the Kansas Department of Education. Blue Valley’s average score benefits from having very few low income students and masks the fact that other districts do as well or better on individual student groups.
De Soto’s and Gardner-Edgerton’s superior performance has great significance for taxpayers. In fact, if the other five Johnson County districts operated at the per-pupil cost of De Soto, the burden on taxpayers could be reduced by $127.1 million! Of course, while De Soto has the lowest operating cost per-student, that doesn’t mean that the district is efficient; savings across the county would be even greater if De Soto’s costs were reduced through consolidation of non-instruction services across district lines and other efficiency opportunities.
FY 2014 per-pupil spending for each Johnson County district is shown below by cost center. 
Download below the pdf tables and per-pupil spending comparisons of all Johnson County school districts, showing how spending has changed since FY 2005.
