Don’t expect to see additional money for education coming out of the 2017 legislature. Ain’t gonna happen, unless I’m happily mistaken. (Man, would I like to be wrong about this!) Instead, expect to see them talk about ways to change how we spread around the current funding, and about how to get more money into the classroom. That’s how the Classrooms First Initiative Council framed the issue in its Final Report, and it’s how Republicans are going to frame their argument when they write their budget, as if the most important thing is doling out the current funding more fairly and spending it more efficiently. They’re going to use that to duck the biggest issue facing our schools: not enough money.
The fact is, any inequities in the way we dole out money to schools and inefficiencies in the ways schools spend it pale in comparison to our unconscionable underfunding of K-12 education in Arizona.
Ducey calls his group looking at education funding his Classrooms First Initiative Council for a reason. A favorite conservative ploy to change the subject from increasing school funding is to talk about the percentage of money that makes it into the classroom. So let’s take a look at that bit of misdirection.
It’s true, Arizona schools spend a lower percentage of their overall funding for instruction than most other states. It’s true and inevitable. The less money schools have overall, the higher the percentage that goes to pay for fixed expenses like building maintenance, operating expenses, transportation and food services. You simply can’t do much to lower those costs. But you can always cram a few more desks into a classroom, put off new textbook and computer purchases and, of course, pay your teachers insultingly low salaries. The less money schools have, the lower the percentage that makes it into the classroom.
But let’s say Arizona schools figure out how to get a larger percentage of their funding into instruction. Let’s say they raise classroom spending by five percent. That sounds like a lot more money in the classroom, right? But it isn’t. It’s less than $400 per student.
Arizona is 49th in the country in per-student spending according to census figures. Oklahoma, number 48, spends $500 more per student than we do. By bringing our funding up a notch to Oklahoma levels, we could put another $400 per student into instruction and, instead of doing it by scrimping on fixed costs, we’d have $100 per student left over to fix or replace a few old buses, make some much-needed repairs and updates to our schools, maybe even improve the quality and nutrition of school lunches.
If we matched 47th place Mississippi, we’d have $900 more per student. If we made it all the way to Texas, it would be $1,100 more. And if we dreamed the impossible dream and equalled the national average, we’d have—drum roll, please—$3,000 more per student.
And we’re worrying about trying to squeeze another $400 per student from our shamefully inadequate funding? Give our schools something close to what other states spend on education, and we’ll see far more than an added $400 per student making it into the classroom.
The Classrooms First Initiative Council says the way we distribute money to various school districts and to charters isn’t equitable, and it recommends a number of ways to remedy that situation. Actually, compared to many other states, Arizona does a reasonably good job of doling out its funding. Sure, it could be done more fairly—though from my reading of the council’s Final Report, their recommendations would increase the inequities in favor of charter schools and districts with higher income families—but our main problem is underfunding, not inequitable funding. Give schools the money they need to provide a quality education to their students and the district-to-district and school-to-school differences will shrink in importance.
The legislature’s duty to the schools is to give them adequate funding, first and foremost, which they aren’t doing and haven’t done for ages. After that, it can worry about the niceties of equalizing distribution of funds and getting more money into classrooms.
I still haven’t written about the specifics of the Classrooms First Initiative Council’s recommendations. That’s going to have to wait for yet another post.
This article appears in Dec 15-21, 2016.
Underfunding? The buildings look like they are not even maintained. Public schools can not get ENOUGH funding the way they spend money. The accountability method? “More money.”
No mas.
“The fact is, any […] inefficiencies in the ways schools spend [money] pale in comparison to our unconscionable underfunding of K-12 education in Arizona.”
That’s an opinion, not a fact.
Some of the “inefficiencies” in the way schools spend money (or choose not to spend it) do not pale in comparison with just about anything:
***While schools are so shamefully underfunded, why did the Superintendent of a low-SES district in a town with a relatively low cost of living take home $500K in compensation in the last year (salary + expense accounts + bonuses + retention incentives + compensation for 40 annual vacation days not taken, etc.)?
***While we have such a teacher shortage, why did millions of dollars in 301 funds sit in TUSD bank accounts, failing to be distributed to the district’s overburdened, hard working teachers?
Sorry, while the people who are the biggest defenders of public district schools find it impossible to hold Sanchez accountable for spending the money the district DOES receive in a way that benefits students and retains teachers, my heart will not break that he and his friends will not immediately be given more money to waste. Let us know, David, when you and your friends decide to require people running the districts for which you beg funds to anything resembling a reasonable standard of performance in office; your arguments might be worth considering once you are willing to grant that the public has a right to expect that the funds won’t be flushed down the educational toilet that TUSD has become under its current management.
(By the way, David, you forgot to put your finger on another serious problem with Arizona schools, one which the “Classrooms First” report tells us Ducey and his crew will try to exacerbate: they hope to “provide all public schools with the ability to operate without the constraints of onerous regulations.” Not at all what’s needed. Together with more funding what we should receive is more oversight that holds the people applying funds accountable for applying the funds in ways that BENEFIT STUDENTS. In Arizona, we will receive neither: neither sufficient funding nor accountability in how the insufficient funding we do receive is spent. Nor will we receive commentary that helps us understand what really needs to be done in this state. Just partisan BS defending irresponsible public district schools from one side of the fence and more partisan BS defending irresponsible charters and privates from the other.)
Sorry No more funds, but I think the Governor is giving them enough rope (by reducing oversight) that parents and tax payers can slip the noose over their heads, (literally speaking), and bring this gigantic fiasco to a close. We have education coups running government coups.
Just look at how attempts increased since the 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_d'%C3%A9tat_and_coup_attempts
Here a coup, there a coup,
Everywhere a cuckoo.
Gee, TUSD Should Be Ashamed, some of us don’t feel that taking that approach (giving them just enough rope…) is a responsible one when these folks have been entrusted with the care and education of children. Take the children out of their care or require them to be responsible…those are the two choices available to those state-level officials exercising authority over our education system. “Leave the children in their care and allow them to be irresponsible” should not be an option, but that’s what we get in Arizona, and it’s not just malfeasant administrators who suffer as a result. It’s tens of thousands of students and the entire community surrounding the schools where they are mis-educated.
I would have agreed but after watching TUSD for 40 years you know that is not going to happen. They need an intervention. If the state does it they will be blamed by the media for even more than they are now.
Push the voters to accomplish what they could not get support to do. May seem cowardly, but it also may work. I hear the left speaking out against the progressive cancerous thinking that is rotting our schools. Right now they have plenty of time on their hands. The last election they lost almost everything.
Let’s fix the schools and get ready to reap the windfall of a blossoming economy.
This State is incredibly diverse in school district size and types. There are at least 250 school districts and they are all up to their necks in reporting on “accountability” on everything under the sun to the State ADE. The JTEDs had new “accountability” standards (many of dubious import) qpiled on just to get their same money back. This obsession with Sanchez herein doesn’t solve the Statewide problem. And Ducey has played out his strategy to get more with nothing new. Of course holding the charter school industry to the same accountability standards as public school districts never seems to enter the equation, as they spend twice as much per student for “administration” (profits?)
The latest NAEP data reveals that accountability appears to be absolutely toxic. The productivity of the US public school system from the years grade 4 through grade 8 has collapsed by 15%. This is the accountability zone where we intensely track both test scores and gains and enforce standards children.
Meanwhile the gains through 4 have more than offset that loss.
Test based accountability is not what’s being referred to in this comment stream, Huppenthal.
It’s holding ADMINISTRATIONS accountable for APPLYING FUNDS in ways that BENEFIT STUDENTS, not holding teachers and schools “accountable” for their students’ test scores, which is what NCLB and RTTP imposed in two of the most ill-advised federal education programs in the history of the nation.
The kind of accountability discussed in this comment stream has to do with what a responsible State Department of Education might encourage in the public school districts under its oversight, e.g. making sure there are financial transparency controls and standards and the power of Boards and administrators is not abused.
Frances Perkins: the Sanchez problem is an example of a larger problem. If this can happen in one of our public districts, which people like you hold up as models of “transparency and accountability,” then the district system is not as much of an exemplar in this department as it is made out to be. Stop haunting the comment streams and start attending school board meetings in the public school districts whose “transparency” you love to promote. Once you take a look at the details of governance, you will recognize that citizen advocacy for transparency is needed here as well: not just in the charter / private sector.