Reading Recovery:How Much Does It Cost?Christy Wall Harrelson

Dr. G. Geer

EDAD 684: School Finance-Ethics

Spring 2011

What is Reading Recovery?• Early intervention for struggling emerging readers

(the bottom 20% of the first grade class)• For first grade students only• One-on-one • Provided by a trained, highly-certified teacher• 12-20 weeks of instruction and intervention• 30 minutes of daily instruction• Supplements rather than replaces

classroom reading instruction (in

ADDITION TO what students are

already receiving, not in place of)• Data-driven

A typical Reading Recovery lesson consists of…• Familiar re-reads (reading familiar books for fluency

and comprehension)• Reading the book from the previous

day’s lesson to complete a running

record (data collection)• Working with magnetic letters and

words (sound and spelling patterns)• Writing a story• Putting together a cut-up story

(structured language)• Introducing and reading a new book

Vision and Goals: Why Reading Recovery?

“The goal of Reading Recovery is to dramatically reduce the number of

first-grade students who have extreme difficulty learning to read and write and to reduce the cost of

these learners to educational systems.”

-Reading Recovery: Basic Facts

www.readingrecovery.org

What does this have to do with us?• We want the most bang for our buck.• Reading Recovery produces consistent results in a short amount of time

(81% of students graduating from the program in South Carolina in the 2009-2010 school year reached or surpassed grade level performance).

• Early interventions help prevent the effects of low performance such as…– truancy,– continued poor performance,– increases in the number of students labeled with learning

disabilities,– increases in the needs for special support staff to address learning

difficulties later on,– increases in drop-out rates,– “reduced employment opportunities” (from

www.readingrecovery.org),– and involvement in criminal behavior.

So…how much does it cost?

Let’s compare…A cost comparison example:

Calculations for estimated annual per-pupil cost based on a teacher salary and benefits of $60,000 annually.

- From “Reading Recovery Is Cost Effective”

www.readingrecovery.org

INTERVENTION ANNUAL PER-PUPIL COST

AVERAGE TIME IN PROGRAM

PER-PUPIL COST ACROSS TIME

Retention $9,200 1 year $9,200

Title I $2,400 5 years $12,000

Special Ed. $3,750 5 years $18,750

Other (eg. Small group pull-out)

$2,400 3 years $7,200

Reading Recovery $3,750 12-20 weeks $3,750

Costs are based on…• Average teacher salary (found on state report

cards)• Adjusted teacher cost (fringe benefits)• Annual spending per pupil (state report cards)• Pupil-teacher ratio (state report cards)• Number of Reading Recovery Full-time Equivalent

(FTE) teachers (1 FTE equals 8 slots)• Number of students served per FTE (number of

FTE’s in the district divided by the total number of students served)

• Cost per student served

Formula for determining cost per pupil is as follows…

Step 1: Calculate the Adjusted Teacher Salary/Cost

Average teacher salary x 1.3 (allocated for fringe benefits)

Step 2: Determine the Number of FTE’s (full-time equivalent teachers) for Reading Recovery

Total Number of RR Slots / 8 (number of slots taught by an FTE teacher)

Step 3: Determine the Number of RR Students Served per FTE

Number of Students Served / Number of FTE’s

Step 4: Determine Reading Recovery per Pupil Cost

Adjusted Teacher Salary / Number of RR Students Served per FTE

In Horry County, for example,…(Information based on the 2009-2010 District Report Card)

Average teacher salary-$50,257.00

Step 1: Adjusted teacher cost (salary)-$65,334.10

($50,257.00 x 1.3, with 1.3 accounting for fringe benefits)

Step 2: Number of FTE’s for Reading Recovery-15

(120 / 8)

Step 3: Number of Students Served per FTE-14

(210 / 15)

Step 4: Cost per Reading Recovery Pupil-$4,355.61

How does this compare for Horry County?

Intervention Annual Per-Pupil Cost

Average Time in Program

Per-Pupil Cost Across Time

Retention $10,122 1 year $10,122 ($ spent per pupil)

Title I 3 years

Special Ed. $3,170 5 years $15,850

Reading Recovery $4,355.61 12-20 weeks(less than 1 year)

$4,355.61

Cost Comparison for Horry County:Calculations for estimated annual per-pupil cost based on a teacher salary and benefits of $50,257 annually.

Training/Start Up CostsThe following costs are incurred by the district choosing

to implement the Reading Recovery program. The costs apply to each teacher trained to provide Reading Recovery instruction.

• Starter set of materials for implementation-$3,000• Teacher textbooks-$150• Tuition cost for graduate course required for training-

$3,500• Support fee for regional training site-$3,000• Continuing contract fee-$300 a year/$900 over

expected 3-years of Reading Recovery instruction

TOTAL-$10,550 per teacher trained

And the total is…

For a district like Horry County considering…• 15 Reading Recovery teachers x $10,550• 210 students served x $4,355.61

…the total cost of implementing Reading Recovery for one full year comes roughly to a grand total of…

$1,072,928That is roughly 4.57 % of the total $234,718,979.00

Horry County spent on instruction last year.

References• Assad, S. & Condon, M.A. (1996). Demonstrating the cost effectiveness

of reading recovery: Because it makes a difference. Network News: A Newsletter Published by the Reading Recovery Council of North America, Winter, 1-3.

• Gomez Bellenge, F.X. (2002). Measuring the cost of reading recovery: A practical approach. Journal of Reading Recovery, Fall, 47-54.

• McBride, M. (2010). Computing the cost of reading recovery to your district. Retrieved from

http://www.clemson.edu/readingrecovery/CostofRR.ppt • Ohio State University Reading Recovery . (2010). Requirements and costs

for the training of reading recovery teachers in ohio. Retrieved from http://

www.rrosu.org/Becoming/REQUIREMENTS_AND_COSTS_Amended_Oct_2010.pdf

• Reading Recovery Council of North America. (2010). Reading recovery: A guide for decision makers. Retrieved from

http://www.readingrecovery.org