In my previous post, I explored reasons why NWA 7A high school football dominates the rest of the state – specifically, central Arkansas.
All coaches I interviewed said NWA school districts prioritize sports and allocate more money for them. I was curious, then, how much NWA schools spend on athletics vis a vis central Arkansas schools. As you see below, only Cabot places among the top five districts in terms of estimated athletics expenditure per student:
How I got these numbers:
1. Most recent expenditure numbers (2011-12) came from the Arkansas Department of Education.
2. I also got most recent school enrollments (2010-11) from the ADE. Some schools in the districts (all elementary schools and most middle schools in NWA) don’t have athletic programs so I subtracted the enrollment of those schools. Therefore, the number of students mentioned in the above graph pertain to only the enrollments of high schools, junior highs and middle schools with athletic programs.
3. I divided the expenditures by the number of students to get a rough estimate of how much priority the districts give to sports. Rough, because I took numbers from two separate years. Also because I used only expenditure numbers from one specific year and those can strongly fluctuate based on major infrastructure building projects.
Still, the goal here was to provide a snapshot giving us a ballpark idea of why NWA keeps coming out on top. I believe the graph does that.
Oh, and here’s one of the consequences when it comes to football:
Since 2005, NWA teams are 24-10 vs. central Arkansas teams in the 7A playoffs. Six times in that period NWA has battled central Arkansas with a spot in the finals at War Memorial Stadium on the line. Six times, NWA won:
2005 Springdale 49, LR Catholic 14
2006 Fort Smith Southside 40, NLR 34 (2 OT)
2009 Springdale Har-Ber 14, Cabot 10
2009 Fort Smith Southside 24, NLR 23
2011 Bentonville 31, NLR 7
2012 Fayetteville 30, NLR 28
