posted 10-29-2000 10:20 PM               

OK. First off, let's talk about the language a lot of people use to describe this problem, that idea of "throwing money" at it. I hear this term a lot, and like a lot of political rhetoric, I'm never quite sure what it means, and unfortunately there's no polemic-to-English dictionary around to help out those of us that aren't Washington insiders. So let's pick it apart William Safire-style.

Throwing money at something seems to indicate that you're sending public funds in the general direction of a problem without any rhyme or reason. In this case, it might mean state capitols funneling money into school districts' budgets, increasing dollars garnered from tax revenues without earmarking any specific purposes for it. Or a school district itself noticing a number of problems and increasing property taxes to compensate.

Based on the general context of a lot of arguments I've heard and editorials I've read, that seems to be a pretty good definition of the term. And it makes a lot of sense, but for one thing: It doesn't make any sense. By that definition, it's impossible to throw money at anything. That's what line items in budgets are for. That's what business managers in school districts are for. That's what state fiscal year budgets are for. That's what competitive grant applications are for. You can't just grab money from a source - especially tax revenues - without knowing where you're going to put it. In Pennsylvania, there are a heck of a lot of school administrators applying for a heck of a lot of competitive grants to get new stuff for their classrooms and new training opportunities for their teachers. And there are a heck of a lot of business managers saying no to a heck of a lot of high school teachers and coaches because whatever they're requesting wasn't outlined in the budget. So it's not really possible to throw money at our schools, and anyone who uses that term is simply turning the situation into a cartoon.

But that's just according to my definition.
Now let's get back to this idea of more funding leading to better students - I've heard some folks mention that there's more of a connection between poor performance and bad neighborhoods. The schools with a lousier showing in the standardized test department generally happen to be in worse neighborhoods than the ones that get better scores, he says.

In a big way, that's totally correct. That's why Teach For America sends its teachers to schools in Compton and the Ozarks rather than to Westchester. Poor schools tend to be in poor neighborhoods. Steve might think that idea renders the funding issue moot, since a school will only be as good as the neighborhood it's in.

But instead, it creates a need to spend even more money to fix the problem. If a bad school is bad because the neighborhood that surrounds it creates a negative learning environment, then it stands to reason that improvement would lie in bettering the neighborhood. As Rudy Giuliani knows, revitalizing a neighborhood costs money. Either in improving the infrastructure or hiring an economic development team, you're gonna spend somebody's money somewhere.

posted 11-02-2000 10:59 PM               

I think these beliefs are at the root of all the anger aimed at urban school districts and urban areas in general. Given the post-WWII suburbanization trends, it is likely that many of those who live in today’s suburbs have never lived in cities. They were raised to believe that their environment was the America that counted; the America that the politicians courted. Until we relearn the lessons of economics that prove how essential cities are to the survival of the suburbs, these beliefs will linger. It is still true that if the cities die, so goes America. It is also true that if the city schools die, so goes America.

posted 11-03-2000 11:16 AM               

It seems like all politicians talk about the sad state of public schools, and giving back control to the local level. But control already is, for the most part, at the local level--because, at least in Massachusetts, the majority of the funds come from local property taxes. I think that, in order to fix what is wrong with public school, we need some broad sweeping changes made to how schools are funded. I don't know what the answer is yet. I'm working on it.

posted 11-05-2000 10:32 PM               

I say this based solely on my own experience, which is clearly limited. In central Pennsylvania, where I live, there are lots and lots of two things: Cows and senior citizens. Thus, many of the property tax dollars that fund school districts comes from seniors.

Add that to a high poverty level and a generally libertarian sentiment toward paying taxes, and you get a lot of people who are more concerned about keeping their taxes low than they are about providing quality education.

Some of the feeling is understandable. It's a blue-collar area, where lots of folks work really hard for not a lot of money, and they don't want to see what they've earned taken away, no matter what for. That's a sentiment I can get behind, especially when I look at the difference between the net and the gross on my already paltry paycheck.

In one school district I used to cover when I worked for a newspaper in Huntingdon, some of the seniors (and a few not-so-seniors) had formed a taxpayers' association, a group that aimed to get tax millages reduced to the barest minimum. Many of them got onto the school board through a get-out-the-vote campaign.

The result: Two years later, the district lost a school-to-work vocational program and an athletic trainer (a total of about $13,000 a year). Seniors and the taxpayers' group, most of whom had no children, were happy. Parents -- especially parents with kids in athletic or vocational programs -- were aghast.

The taxpayers' group reps on the school board said they tried as often as they could to get state and federal grants to pay for school programs and equipment. But, being a socially conservative group, they also tried to institute school prayer, in clear violation of federal law.

Ultimately, the composition of the school board changed due to public outcry and a second get-out-the-vote campaign, this time by actual parents. But during the intervening years, had a student athlete been seriously injured on the field, they'd have had to wait for paramedics.

All of this happened under local control. It's hard to say that a situation involving state bureaucrats directing the budget would have been any better, but I think a system that lets people who have no children dictate what sorts of educational initiatives can go to other people's children is flawed, especially when the people without children stand to lose money. Like Kate said, I don't know what the solution is, but the current system ain't it.

posted 11-06-2000 04:34 PM               

quote:

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...you get a lot of people who are more concerned about keeping their taxes low than they are about providing quality education.

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Additionally, we have the imfamous Proposition 13 (passed in the late '70s) which states that property taxes cannot be changed by the State Legislature voting on it but only by the vote of person's in that county. So basically, since homeowners vote to increase their own property taxes, you can imagine how often that happens. And it needs to pass by 2/3 super majority, making increases even more unlikely.

Lastly, all bond issues (a popular way of paying for new school construction or existing school infrastructure work) must pass by 2/3 super majority.

In my own town, we have one completely over crowded high school. The nineth graders had to be moved back to the middle school years back because their wasn't room in the high school for them. In the last 4 years, we have had a large influx of new residents (spurred by the damned dotcom boom in nearby San Jose), most of them with children. A local developer's family agreed to donate land to build a new, badly needed high school campus. All the city had to do was find money for building it. Three separate attempts to pass a bond issue failed to meet the 2/3 super majority needed. So no new high school.

posted 11-06-2000 07:37 PM               

But for the most part, it didn't seem to matter much, since southern California shares weather patterns with heaven, and nobody ever had to worry about walking to class in the rain (at least, until El Nino came along).

But having read slgorman's post, it seems that there was something way bigger going on behind the scenes. When I was there, I never really had time to worry about much more than how well my kids were reading and to what degree they were imitating local gang members at recess, so I can imagine how much time the teachers had to worry about securing bond issues.

All the more reason to pitch a tent in the teachers-as-heroes camp.

[This message has been edited by Kevin Ott (edited 11-06-2000).]

posted 11-07-2000 12:45 PM               

quote:

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...so I can imagine how much time the teachers had to worry about securing bond issues.

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Our district has been in the process of trying to develop a bond issue to build a modern, new extension campus in this city. It has been pushed back, time-wise, about two years. Solely because no one seems to have time to get out and promote it. I have come to the realization, after speaking with full-time faculty located on the "main" campus who do not teach at my site, that I am going to have to throw *my* shoulder into this measure (I live NOWHERE near the city I work in) if I want to see this happen, all for the benefit of my students.

posted 11-07-2000 07:39 PM               

In the name of honesty, I will admit, this current situation benfits me. I end up with a smaller overall teaching load, and three hours repeated is easier than three new hours teaching something else to maintain my current load.

I am in the process of preparing a proposal to get us larger space, eliminating this problem overall. That, I assure you, is another headache altogether.

Our lecture space, on the other hand, is the envy of all instructors at my site. Carpet, new desks, auditorium style seating for ~45 with great capabilites for power point presentations. [As I re-read that, it doesn't sound that impressive. Let me restate--I am housed in what was, until recently, a JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. Does that help?] We adore it, but will most likely have to sacrifice it (or at least not horde it to ourselves like we do now) to gain the increased lab space. Did I ever mention that Compromise is my middle name?