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March 26, 2008
For more information, contact
Christina Brey, WEAC Communications Coordinator
608-298-2519
Superintendents: Revenue caps increase class sizes,
decrease school safety, harm public education
New survey and new videos show cuts worsening across the board
and especially severe in some program and service areas
State-imposed education revenue caps are wreaking havoc for great schools throughout our state and worsening over time, according to a survey released jointly today by the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators.
WEAC and WASDA have conducted this annual survey of the state’s school superintendents every year since 1994. More than 70% of the state’s superintendents responded to this year’s survey.
The new survey asked superintendents to evaluate the impact of the revenue caps on school health and safety measures (Table 9). A majority of the superintendents, 54%, said the caps have had negative or very negative effects on “implementing programs that improve school safety.” Such programs could include buying and maintaining metal detectors, employing school safety and security personnel, launching anti-bullying campaigns, providing pro-active counseling, and a host of other services.
Cuts have worsened in every program and service area
This year’s survey separates program and service area cuts into four groups, according to the severity of their increase in the last eight years. While 48% of the districts reported increasing class sizes because of the caps in the 1998-99 school year, 75% reported doing so in the latest survey, a difference of 27 percentage points. O ther categories that saw a percentage point gain of 25% or more included teacher layoffs and increased administrator and teacher workload.
“Investments in great schools build strong communities, and small class sizes and safe schools are essential parts of the formula,” WEAC President Mary Bell said. “Class-size increases and school safety cuts are two of the many ways the education revenue caps law undermines our communities’ efforts to manage their future and preserve their education investments.”
Cuts have worsened across the board since the 1998-99 school year in each of the 27 program and service areas included in the survey. Ninety-four percent of the districts surveyed reported making budget cuts because of the caps in the 2006-07 school year. The average district made cuts in 18.2 of the 27 areas in the latest survey. In 1998-99, the average was 12.6. One impact has been the narrowing of the curriculum, as courses are reduced or eliminated entirely, especially in areas such as art, music, foreign language, family and consumer education, business education, and vocational education.
Change this law,” said WASDA Executive Director Miles Turner. “ Wisconsin’s schools have done miraculous things to try to maintain their quality in the face of the caps, but the failure to invest in our schools’ and our students’ future has caught up with us.”
Other findings in the 2006-07 study include:
Videos illustrate the impact of education caps throughout the state
The entire revenue caps survey is available online at http://www.weac.org/Capitol/2007-08/march08/revcap08.pdf.
WEAC’s Web site has also collected brief video statements from WEAC members who talk about the impact of revenue caps on the students they work with: http://www.weac.org/News/2007-08/feb08/revcapmap.htm. The educators featured in the videos include WEAC members from Rhinelander, Merrill, Boyceville, Two Rivers and Milwaukee.
A collection of revenue caps and school funding-related articles are available on an OnWEAC resource page: http://www.weac.org/Capitol/funding.htm.
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