Governor Jim Doyle (or his reps) , Mayor Tom Barrett (or his reps), and others (maybe Arne Duncan’s reps) are holding secret meetings to hijack the MPS Innovation and Improvement Advisory Committee for a Mayoral Control proposal. MPS Board President Michael Bonds has resigned from the Committee in Protest.
Jim Doyle likes his secret meetings, Arne Duncan likes his Mayoral control, lots of elections to be considered with the expectation that an MPS shakeup would buy Doyle and Barrett some time; the Race to the Top beauty contest is part of this too.
Notice how none of this has to do with educating the students. Notice also that allowing Doyle and Barrett to say, “give the reforms a chance” and the Race to the Top funding are only short term remedies. At some point the chickens do come home to roost.
Update (8/27/2009, 5:15PM): I learned from Asst. Superintendent for Secondary Education Pam Nash, that West will follow the example of the other High Schools and find a way to fund the Freshman Orientation activities and refreshments without charging a fee.
I’ve been given more information by a Board of Education member and asked to “correct” my previous post on the Freshman Orientation Day fee at West High School. The new information is welcome and I am glad to share it, but since this information does not contradict anything in the initial post, this is an update, not a “correction.”
I am told that it is used for “ the cost of the food and carnival.” In the previous post the possibility that it was for refreshments was considered; I hadn’t realized that there was a carnival involved.
I repeat that if transitions are a priority, they should be funded by the district.
I also want to add something more, based on the DPI Guidelines. That document permits fees for “[s]ocial and extracurricular activities, as they are not necessary elements of a high school career (emphasis added).This is the crux. If the orientation is necessary, it should be free. If it isn’t, then students should be able to decide if they want to pay for food and carnivals (bread and circuses?) or not.
A five-spot won’t buy much these days, but I still think the fee is wrong.
From Johnny Burrito's Ugly Money (click for more).
Update (8/27/2009, 5:15PM: I learned from Asst. Superintendent for Secondary Education Pam Nash, that West will follow the example of the other High Schools and find a way to fund the Freshman Orientation activities and refreshments without charging a fee. See here for an interim update.
I just learned that all 9th graders at Madison West High School will be charged a Freshman Orientation Day fee of $5 (I don’t know about the other High Schools). This is wrong in so many ways.
It is wrong because — as recent Board of Education discussions and the draft Strategic Plan acknowledge — transitions are important, difficult and need attention. Giving attention to transitions should be a district funded matter, not self-funded by the students and their families.
It is wrong because it may be illegal. It depends on what the fee is for. According to the 1974 case State v. Sinclair (cited in this DPI information sheet) a Wisconsin Circuit Court ruled that the state constitutional guaranty of public education “”free and without charge for tuition to all children . . ” prohibited fees “”charged for instruction.” If the Freshman Orientation Day fee is for instruction, than it is illegal.
In the same case, the court permitted fees for extracurricular activities. However, the orientation is mandatory and extracurricular activities are generally not. It is not clearly against the law to charge for a mandatory extracurricular activity, although the whole idea of a mandatory extracurricular activity and a fee for that activity invites care scrutiny. This hasn’t happened.
It may be that the fee is for pizza or other refreshments. In which case, requiring students to pay for food they may not want or consume seems wrong too.
Someone, the Board of Education or the administration, needs to give this some attention and kill the fee.
I know money is tight, but this is not the answer (btw – the district needs to update their budget page, it still has the “everything is hunky-dory” material from the Spring).
Statements by three Wisconsin State Senators on education in the 2009-2011 biennial state budget brought to mind three songs by the Rolling Stones, so I’m offering some special dedications. Read, listen, think, act (click on their names to contact the Senators).
Before getting to the excerpts from the statements and the songs I want to say that whatever my opinion of the statements themselves, I want to applaud the Senators for talking about this in public. It takes a little courage to address these difficult issues and if nobody is talking no progress can be made.
We all know it is complex and that change isn’t easy. As noted in regard to Miller’s fuller statement, change requires work and that work is the responsibility of the State Senate and Assembly.
“I thought protecting education should have been the top priority in the budget, but instead students and property taxpayers are shortchanged with less state aid,” Schultz said.”…
“State school aid is important for our kids and for property taxpayers and it should have been a higher priority.”
Senator Schultz has been in his position since 1991; before that he served a decade in the Assembly. By the standards generally applied to Republicans in Wisconsin, he has been considered a “friend of public education.” This is mostly because he often says something close to the right things. Words are nice: actions are needed. Leadership would be even better. I am waiting.
“We don’t have the money to do school funding reform,” goes conventional wisdom around the Capitol. It costs money to fix the funding formula and money is in very short supply.
Given the state’s fiscal condition, many considered any reform of school funding impossible. But in our Senate District schools simply can’t wait….
As one man from Pepin said, “We have got to start somewhere and we have got to start right now.”
This last song goes out to all the Senators and Members of the Assembly, but Senator Vinehout seems to display more of the “can do,” “get-er’-done” spirit than most who work at the Capitol (including elected officials, staff and lobbyists). As the Miller quote indicates, many will always find reasons why progress and reform can’t happen. I believe it can and must happen. The first step is trying.
From the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (click on image for pdf). 2009-10 will look even worse.
It has been a long time since there has been a “we are not alone” post, reminding Madison readers that school finance is a state issue and needs a state solution.
It has been so long that there are many, many stories of school cuts and layoffs in Wisconsin from the last few months that I never got around to noting.
I want to begin with one of these older items — a story from before the state budget was passed — and then move on to more recent post state budget things. As districts struggle with the difficulties that budget has produced it is essential that these be understood in the context of 16 years of struggles under our broken school funding system.
Appleton North High School teacher Kevin Deering will remember the last day of the school year with equal parts pleasure and pain.
On one hand, students surprised him Thursday by voting him North’s
Educator of the Year. On the other, it was Deering’s final day on the job after
district cost cutting forced layoffs of dozens of teachers for next school year….
“It’s kind of an emotional thing,” he said afterward. “It’s a bittersweet ending
to get voted Educator of the Year and not being able to come back. When I
came to North I never thought I’d be leaving two years later.”
Deering, 27, is in his fourth year of teaching, two of those in Appleton. He
teaches physical science, genetics, and biology. He is an advisor for Link
Crew, a program that eases freshmen into high school life, and has coached
girls track at Appleton East, football at North and boys track at North.
“He will be missed,” said North Principal James Huggins…
The layoffs are the result of budget cuts that became necessary after a
failed referendum in February and account for more than half of the district’s
$3 million deficit for 2009-10 that was projected in March.
With the state budget in deeper trouble than first thought, that figure could go higher.
Unlike last year, when most laid-off teachers, including Deering, were called
back, the number who will not return is substantial.
Due to the finalized state budget, we can now say it is all but certain the 43 teachers laid off earlier in Appleton — and the 40 teachers laid off by Oshkosh in March and all those laid off previously in other districts because the school funding system has been broken for 16 years — will not be called back. From bad to worse.
As I write this the Board of Education is considering a depressing list of options which includes layoffs to paraprofessionals, counselors, interpreters, administrators and teachers (art, physical education and technology have been identified as possibilities); eliminating programs such as marketing; raising class sizes; raising taxes; and closing schools.
Update: WBAY and NBC26 report that the Board voted to close Green Meadow and Lincoln Elementary Schools. They also rejected the option of not filling open positions.
As the Northwestern reports, the families are angry. They are pitting one neighborhood against another, saying that different schools should be closed and saying the “”Oshkosh Area School District’s administrators and board members unfairly targeted Green Meadow.”
The anger is understandable and even good, but it needs to be redirected to the state officials who put the district in this impossible situation.
A few paragraphs from one of the Northwestern news story:
Administrators feel trapped by the unexpected revenue shortfall – the state has never before cut aid to schools in the 16-year history of the existing funding formula – because employment contracts have already been set. Reduction options are now limited to vacant positions and staff who were handed initial layoff notices in February but not let go in the first $2.2 million in budget cuts approved in May.
That means the proposed staffing reductions are based on limited options rather than student needs or interests, Lang said.
“All of our choices have a negative impact one way or another,” she said. Staff cuts hurt immediately, while reductions to site budgets or maintenance services could haunt the district in future years.
“We’re already living with the long term detriments from cuts made 10 years ago,” she said, referring to the district’s deferred maintenance problem….
On one end of the debate sits Board President Ben Schneider II, who said he would struggle to support a plan that raises taxes more than 3 percent.
“I don’t want to shock the system by shifting it all onto the tax payers,” he said. “I’m of the opinion that during a terrible economy we should be reducing taxes.”
Board member Karen Bowen, on the other hand, said she’d prefer a double-digit tax increase to cutting any more teachers or programs.
“I don’t think people really understand what our district will look like if we have to cut much deeper,” she said.
Bad news in Northeastern Wisconsin also, especially Door County. Because of vacation homes, Door County is a high property value area In combination with declining enrollment this has meant real problems for these districts under Wisconsin’s school finance system. Since the full time residents who vote in referenda are not wealthy, they have also had great difficulties applying those temporary band aids. The decline in relative state funding in the recent state budget aggravated the existing problems (click here for details of how the similar “The Lake Effect” combination has hit Northern Tier districts). Here is what the Press Gazette reports some Door County districts (and others) are facing:
“Sturgeon Bay is set to take a 15.19 percent hit in general aid, according to this month’s estimates from the state education department. That change will take the 1,100-student district’s general aid allocation from nearly $5.2 million to nearly $4.4 million.”
“The Southern Door district also is facing a 15.19 percent decrease in general aid, according to state estimates. That change will mean the district takes in $3.2 million in general aid instead of nearly $3.8 million.”
“The Sevastopol School District is facing almost an identical cut, an estimated 15.18 percent, as is the Gibraltar School District, an estimated 15.17 percent.”
“In Marinette County, the Crivitz School District is facing a 15.18 percent decrease in general state aid. Funding could drop by about $172,000, from $1.1 million to $963,000.”
“In Ashwaubenon, the reduction will drop general aid allocation from more than $12.5 million to nearly $11.9 million.”
Not-so-well-known Fact #1: The ongoing difficulty of school boards and administrators in making ends meet is not the result of a lack of oversight or innovativeness. Quite the contrary is true. Most schools are in trouble due to 16 years of revenue controls that have curtailed their ability to adequately deal with basic costs, such as fuel, textbooks, technology and utilities.
After 16 years of state-imposed budgetary controls and stagnant or declining state support, boards and administrators have had to make significant budget cuts. School boards are now in the position of having to eliminate critical educational programs, lay off more staff, and further defer necessary school maintenance projects in order to balance their books. These cuts will have long term negative consequences for our schools and our students, and for the state as a whole.
#2 delineates the combined effects of the 3.1% cut in state aid and the reduction in revenue cap growth.
The last three bring to light a little understood aspect of school finance in Wisconsin: The designation of state funding for property tax relief as school funding. I’m going to quote these in full:
Not-so-well known Fact #3: While most Wisconsinites take great pride in our state’s schools, in the last 15 years Wisconsin’s national rank for per-pupil expenditures has declined from 11th to 19th. This is partly because $800 million dollars that is distributed as state tax credits is categorized as spending for education, but it isn’t actually spent on education. So, while many think the state is picking up two-thirds of the costs of our schools, the level of state support has steadily declined, and today our schools actually receive only a little more than one-half of their support from the state. As a result,greater responsibility for funding our schools is being shouldered by local property taxpayers.
No-so-well-known Fact #4: If $900 million in property tax relief credits included as spending for public education were actually allotted to Wisconsin’s 864,000 school children, per-pupil expenditures would be $1,040 more than they are today, and the state would be ranked 12th nationally in per-pupil expenditures, rather than 19th.
Not-so-well-known Fact #5: To make matters worse, the most recently passed state budget added monies to a “poverty aid program” for schools, but schools do not get an additional dime from this, since the program is actually a tax relief program for residents in districts with low-income students.
The Madison release is a letter to legislators, seeking understanding and aid for the situation the Madison Metropolitan School District must address due to the recent state budget. Here is their summation:
We are hard-pressed to find the silver-lining of the dark cloud of a budget that presents itself. A cut in the allowable revenue limit increase from $275 per pupil to $200 is a loss of nearly $2 million in resources for Madison classrooms. Additionally, the district will lose nearly $1 million in categorical aid.
More problematic is the $9.23 million loss in general school aids – a cut of over 15% when compared to 2008-09. A loss of this magnitude only re-emphasizes our call for comprehensive reform of school funding in Wisconsin.
The district has cut over $60 million in programs and services for students since the inception of state-imposed revenue limits. While we continue to examine all aspects of our local budget for efficiencies and improvements, the loss of nearly $12 million in resources from the state can not be made up by improving bus routes.
Our options are to eviscerate programs, eliminate more opportunities for students and untenably large classes, or use the local property tax levy to fill the gaping hole left by the state. Regardless of what we choose to do, in the final analysis, more cuts must be made.
Digging further into the details of the Madison situation reveals that the biggest problem under the current system is that Madison is a high spending, high property wealth district at a time when state investments in education are falling further behind costs. Because of this combination, the current system and funding levels hit Madison hard.
I believe in the concept of equalization, but the concept must start with a commitment by the state to provide a foundation of adequate resources for all districts and schools (not necessarily a “foundation plan,” but the equivalent in support; Wisconsin’s system has been called a “backwards foundation plan“).
Both the timing and the size of the adjustments Madison must make are difficult, to say the least.
SFN and the Madison Board close with calls for a comprehensive fix.
SFN:
Throughout the state, there is a growing sense that something needs to be done to fix Wisconsin’s broken school funding system. We could start by getting the facts straight on school spending, including how much of that spending is supported by the state.
In these difficult economic times, it is more important than ever that our students receive a quality education, one that prepares them for their future jobs, and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. The failure to provide our children with a quality education threatens not only their future, but the future well-being and prosperity of our entire state.
MMSD Board of Education:
Two years ago, every member of our delegation (and nearly every Democrat in the Legislature) supported Assembly Joint Resolution 35, which called for changes to the state funding formula by July 1, 2009. While the deadline has passed, the goals of AJR 35 remain laudable. We stand ready to work with you and other members of the education community to move our state’s K-
12 system forward.
The Wausau Daily Herald has a story up entitled “Removal of state cap on teacher salaries expected to increase taxes.” The removal of the QEO without comprehensive school funding reform was a bad idea, but it is much too early to tell what the post-QEO contracts look like and whether they will contribute to property tax increases.
No matter if the post QEO settlements are more than 3.8% or less than 3.8%, it isn’t too early to tell that there will be property tax increases.
Besides forcing greater than usual programing cuts on school districts, the recently passed Wisconsin budget accelerated the shift in education funding to property taxes. With all the last minute, behind closed doors changes, I’ve been having trouble getting numbers I’m confident of, but the state funding according to the old formula used to arrive at the old 2/3 guarantee will be in the 61% to 62% range this biennium. If you take out the levy credits – money that never goes near a school — the level of state funding looks to be about 50%.
Madison — with no new teacher contract at this time — will have to use $9 million more in local monies simply to cut $3 million from the programs included in the balanced budget passed in May (or use the Fund balance or re-budget, this $3 million cannot be made up by property taxes under the revenue caps). $3 million in cuts and $9 million in revenues needed and none of this involves the QEO repeal. If all the $9 million is shifted to property tax payers, it would lead to about a 54¢ mil rate increase, or about $135 on a $250,000 home. None of this has anything to do with the QEO repeal.
Actually, that’s not quite true, they are related because the same people are responsible. The QEO repeal, the shift in education funding to property taxes, the mandated program cuts, the unwillingness to move on comprehensive school funding reform, the betrayal of the Wisconsin Promise of “A Quality Education for Every Child,” are all examples of the kind of “leadership” Wisconsin has, the sad state of of the Governor’s office, the Assembly and the State Senate.
Senator Mark Miller (D-Monona) issued a statement giving his spin on education funding in the recently passed Wisconsin budget. It is a confusing statement, in that Miller seems to all but ignore the continued shift in funding from the state to local property taxpayers (the old 2/3 formula is long gone, we are now struggling to stay above 60% and if the levy credit is treated as what it is — property tax relief — the real level of state support is hovering a little above 50%) to concentrate on the last minute, behind closed doors insertion that was intended to limit the cuts in state aid to any school districts to 10% or less (Quadric Aid anyone?).
Things didn’t work out as planned, resulting in some 100 districts (including MMSD) taking hits of 15% (see this editorial from the Appleton Post Crescent for more). As far as I can tell the $4,519 in lost aid to MMSD that Senator Miller refers to is the portion of the loss due to the 10%/Quadric Aid legislation. In total MMSD is experiencing a $9 million shift in funding that must be filled by local resources.
I hope to have a chance to write more about Senator Miller’s figures and other budget numbers soon.
For now I want to point to one thing that Senator Miller is correct about. Here is the quote:
These large cuts are primarily a function of the school aid formula…
I’d add that they are also a function of the reduction in education investments and shifts to local property taxes, but all that can be broadly considered part of the “school aid formula.”
The good news is that Senator Miller as a co-sponsor of the Pope-Roberts/Breske Resolution is on record saying that Wisconsin’s school funding system needs to be changed and that it should have:
1. Funding levels based on the actual cost of what is needed to provide children with a sound education and to operate effective schools and classrooms rather than based on arbitrary per pupil spending levels;
2. State resources sufficient to satisfy state and federal mandates and to prepare all children, regardless of their circumstances, for citizenship and for post−secondary education, employment, or service to their country;
3. Additional resources and flexibility sufficient to meet special circumstances, including student circumstances such as non−English speaking students and students from low−income households, and district circumstances such as large geographic size, low population density, low family income, and significant changes in enrollment;
4. A combination of state funds and a reduced level of local property taxes, derived and distributed in a manner that treats all taxpayers equitably regardless of local property wealth and income;
The current funding system is inadequate in all these areas and the recent budget moved us in the wrong direction on all of these.
Time to get to work.
All of us can point the finger at the “school aid formula,” but only Senator Miller and his colleagues in the Senate and the Assembly have the power to change it.
The school referendum approved overwhelmingly by Madison Metropolitan School District voters in November 2008 was based on a “Partnership Plan” that promised to maintain educational quality, initiate a community-wide strategic planning process, and mitigate the impact on property tax-payers in a variety of ways.
While the school district remains committed to the principles of this Partnership Plan, with the uncertain economy many things have changed since November. Most significantly, the recently enacted state budget has left MMSD facing what now looks like a $9 million reduction in state aid as well as requiring an almost $3 million reduction in expenditures for the 2009-10 school year.
As the MMSD Board of Education seeks ways to address the shortfalls created by the state budget, Community and Schools Together (CAST) believes it is important that the community recognize that this problem was created by state officials, not local decisions. The reductions in revenues and in funding for targeted programs (via categorical aids) will impact every district in the state. Madison is one of about 100 districts that have had their general state aid cut by 15%, but almost all districts are experiencing significant reductions in state support and will be contemplating higher than anticipated property tax increases.
These cuts come after 16 years of inadequate funding, annual cuts in most districts as well as reductions of the state’s portion of education costs in recent years. This recent state budget moves us further away from the sustainable, equitable and adequate educational investments that are needed to keep Madison and Wisconsin strong and competitive.
It is also important that the community understand that the tax and revenue projections in the Partnership Plan and those used in the preliminary district budget passed in May were good projections made in good faith based on the best available information. That preliminary budget strengthened education and held property tax mil rate increase to 1¢ (far below the 11¢ increase anticipated prior to the referendum).
In the coming months the Board of Education must find ways to meet the shortfalls created by the state budget. There are no good choices.
These choices involve some combination re-budgeting and re-allocating, potential new cuts, use of the district’s recently growing fund balance, temporarily employing targeted stimulus monies, or increasing the local tax levy. CAST urges the Board to retain their commitment to quality education and community involvement. We also ask the community to take advantage of opportunities to let all our state and local elected officials know that Madison values education.
###
Community and Schools Together (CAST) is a grass roots organization dedicated to securing sustainable, adequate and equitable public education investments in Madison and Wisconsin.
Will that leave either schools or taxpayers wobbly? Will the last leg fall, too?
In any case, Wisconsin’s old order for how to fund schools is coming to an end, and what comes next remains to be decided, perhaps two years from now when the next state budget is adopted. Pressure for an overhaul is growing, even as economic realities are providing strong pressure to hold down budgets.
Governor Jim Doyle (or his reps) , Mayor Tom Barrett (or his reps), and others (maybe Arne Duncan’s reps) are holding secret meetings to hijack the MPS Innovation and Improvement Advisory Committee for a Mayoral Control proposal. MPS Board President Michael Bonds has resigned from the Committee in Protest.
AMPS 