When it comes to money and public education, I am of two minds. On the one hand, I do not believe that pouring more money into dysfunctional systems will by itself solve the underlying problems that plague education.
Some members of interest groups were ready to string me up last year when I used inartful language to suggest that federal stimulus money could be wasted if it was used only to prop up broken institutions.
On the other hand, I found a story by Mike Booth in Sunday’s Denver Post about crushing budget woes in Colorado Springs to be shocking and disturbing. Although the story dealt with city government rather than the school district, it gave me a canary-in-a-coal-mine feeling. In case you missed it:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday.
The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
Wow. Sure, Colorado Springs is the home of anti-government zealot Doug Bruce, and is known for its ultra-conservative politics and aversion to taxes. But did average citizens in that spectacularly situated town have any idea what they were about to lose when they, according to the Post, “said an emphatic no (last November) to a tripling of property tax that would have restored $27.6 million to the city’s $212 million general fund budget?”
It’s when I read stories like this one that I feel more in tune with organizations, like Great Education Colorado, which advocate tirelessly and somewhat monotonally for increased education spending in Colorado. Yes, education is underfunded here, if you look at needs (including capital construction) versus resources. No, education isn’t close to the Colorado Springs cliff. Not yet.
But it could get there. As EdNews’ Todd Engdahl reported last year:
The state’s financial clock is ticking because 2011 is when Referendum C (the five-year window during which the state can spend “extra” revenues under TABOR), one factor in Amendment 23 (the multi-part formula requiring annual increases in K-12 spending) and federal stimulus money all expire.
So this is the moment for people to shed their pet ideologies and their mantles of self-interest and get serious about how to tackle these challenges in a sensible manner.
That’s easy to say, of course, but as recent political debacles in Washington demonstrate, difficult to do. Nancy Mitchell reported last week that as school districts grapple with profound budgetary challenges, jockeying for position is already under way. In several districts, state budget cuts mean teachers will not be getting their full raises.
In Jefferson County, two school board members touched the third rail by passing on a community suggestion that perhaps teachers’ base salaries should be frozen. Jefferson County Education Association President Kerrie Dallman called the proposal “insulting.”
But Jeffco, which has had a tough time passing mill levy hikes and bond issues in recent years, provides an excellent illustration of the challenges districts and unions face in the coming months and years.
Teachers, famously under-compensated, do not want their salaries frozen. Who does? Nor do they, or their communities, want to see layoffs and the class-size increases that would result.
So something has to give – and probably more than one thing.
Are we capable of working together across various divides to forge creative solutions? Stay tuned. We’ll find out in the coming months.
As we move forward, let’s all keep the cautionary tale of Colorado Springs in mind.
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Thoughtful piece – one other consideration is the differences between Districts that passed recent bonds. DPS — with a successful $454M bond — has money for capital projects even as the basic district finances remain precarious (in financial parlance, their Balance Sheet is much stronger than their Income Statement, which is a oddly contrarian position to most businesses currently). In contrast, JeffCo failed to approve a similar bond, and it’s ability to invest in its infrastructure is limited. It is quite possible that the financial resources of neighboring Districts will continue to diverge. This is partly market dynamics, but much more so (as Alan notes) a political differentiation, and one that is not helped in the current stratified political climate.
Alan, I appreciate the post – lots of good points.
I do wonder why you call Great Education Colorado’s advocacy on behalf of better funding “monotonal” – is it any more so than other groups that advocate for charters, choice, teacher accountability or other reforms?
My only complaint about Great Education Colorado is that higher ed needs such an active advocate, probably more than K12, and it isn’t out there.
While there is no one-to-one correlation between spending and quality of public services, including education, neither are they completely decoupled. To some degree, we get what we pay for.
According to the Tax Foundation, Colorado’s state/local tax levels are about 90% of the national average – that means we will fund most public services at lower than average levels. K12 education has been about 90% of the national average spending per pupil, but higher ed has been funded at about 60% of the national average.
I think Great Ed does excellent work, but I do think the issues are more complex than the simple financial starvation of public education. Great Ed believes that too. From the organization’s website: “And while increased funding alone cannot solve the problems in the state’s public education system, in its absence, no equitable or sustainable solutions to provide the opportunities necessary for our students’ and for Colorado’s future are possible.” It’s a chicken or egg question. Money first, or reform?
I agree that there should be a much greater focus on higher education funding. I was able to convince some of my conservative family members to vote for Ref C on that issue alone, by claiming that I had paid taxes for 36 years in Colorado which got their children through college, and that now I need them to return the favor for my children. Are we all in this together, or just until your needs are met?
What evidence do you have to support your assertions that education is “dysfunctional”? Certainly, support of public education is dysfunctional. We are getting what we pay for. Your commentary represents the typical right wing rhetoric that’s been circulating for over 30 years. If the public schools are, indeed, “failing”, then why aren’t they being “saved” instead of being neglected and abandoned? Charter schools aren’t the salvation. More likely, they contribute to inequity.
That may mark the first time I have ever been called a right-winger. How would you propose to “save” public schools? Please be detailed in your response.
How about the decreased funding for successful districts? That too is occurring. Was not funding a factor in their success?
Educating all children to their potential is just that “all to their potential”.