Survey: Devastation From Education Caps Worsens Every Year

WEAC President Stan Johnson and other concerned educators discuss the newest survey of state superintendents on the impact of state-imposed education caps at a State Capitol news conference. Joining Johnson are (left to right) Jean McCulloch Harper, president of the Wisconsin Art Education Association; Jim Oakley, past president of the Wisconsin Association for Language Teachers; Miles Turner, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators; Christine C. Hayes, president of the Wisconsin Music Education Association; and Darla J. Burton, chair of the Advocacy Committee for the Wisconsin Association for Leadership in Education and Work.

State-imposed education caps are devastating the curriculum in our state’s great schools and worsening over time, according to a survey released Tuesday (February 28, 2006) by WEAC and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators.

The survey of the state’s school superintendents has been conducted every year since 1994, the year after the Wisconsin Legislature imposed the revenue caps law on local school districts. Sixty-five percent of Wisconsin’s school district superintendents responded to the survey this year.

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. For example, the survey found that 48% of the school districts increased class sizes in 1998-99 because of the caps while 70% did in the 2004-05 school year. Thirty-six percent of districts laid off teachers in 1998-99 while 70% did in 2004-05.

“Supporters of the latest TABOR proposal, the so-called Taxpayer Protection Amendment, have said that TABOR will be ‘revenue controls on everything’,” WEAC President Stan Johnson said. “This survey shows that revenue controls are not working for Wisconsin’s schools and are not something we should inflict on the rest of our state.”

For the first time, this survey asked superintendents to predict cuts they would be forced to make in the next three years and asked if they represented districts where student enrollment is declining or stable.

The impact is about twice as severe in districts with declining enrollment because the education caps are tied so strictly to enrollment numbers. Subjects that are tested in compliance with the federal “No Child Left Behind” law such as math, English, science and social science are impacted, but not as profoundly as subjects such as vocational and technical education, art, foreign language and music that are not tested.

“Wisconsin’s schools have always been a leader in the nation, but they will not continue to be if we do not change this law,” said WASDA Executive Director Miles Turner. “The failure to invest in our infrastructure poses a real and permanent threat to the basic quality of our schools.”

Sixty percent of the districts with declining enrollment predicted they would have to cut vocational and technical education programs and art programs in the next three years if the education caps law is not changed, and more than 50% said they would cut programs in foreign language and music. Even among districts with increasing or stable enrollment, approximately half as many superintendents predicted making cuts in those areas.

Wisconsin Association For Language Teachers past-president Jim Oakley cited recent news that the Monroe School District has decided to eliminate its French and Japanese programs because of the education caps law. This is especially distressing, he said, as schools try to prepare students to compete in the global economy.

“It is a sad day when school districts can no longer ask themselves the question, ‘How can we better serve the children in our care?’” Oakley said. “Now they have to ask, ‘What programs can we eliminate, what services can we deny our children, in order to maintain fiscal viability?’”

Other findings in the 2004-05 study include:

• 62% of districts offered fewer courses.
• 57% reduced the number of academic courses.
• 61% reduced programs for gifted and talented students.
• 66% laid off school support staff.
• 65% increased student fees.
• 53% reduced extracurricular programs.
• 53% reduced programs for at-risk students.

Some of the comments made at the news conference include:

• "Budget caps and standardized tests have led to the demise of many career and technical education classes," said Darla J. Burton, chair of the Advocacy Committee for the Wisconsin Association for Leadership in Education and Work. "Losing these comprehensive curriculums drastically reduces the breadth of opportunities for students while limiting the various ways students can learn the numerous skills necessary for the future."
• "It is through growth and understanding in music that emotions may be expressed, compassion awakened and creativity inspired," said Christine C. Hayes, president of the Wisconsin Music Education Association. "Our civilization of today, our leaders of tomorrow, need these inner qualities, fostered by meaningful experiences in music, beginning at a young age in our education system. Music education is a recognized core subject - a unique and essential part of a complete education."
• "Art education as an academic discipline is not expendable; it is essential and must continue to be a component of the complete education every public school student in Wisconsin deserves," said Jean McCulloch Harper, president of the Wisconsin Art Education Association. "We cannot afford an education without art, anymore than we can live in a world without art."
• "Students are being denied opportunities they had expected and which were available to their older brothers and sisters and to their parents," said Oakley, of the Language Teachers Association. "Revenue controls have created a situation in which schools have run out of so-called 'fat' to cut and now must cut into muscle - muscle that includes world language programs that we need to make us stronger and more competitive in the global society."
• "Who can question the importance of business education, vocational education and foreign language in today's increasingly competitive global marketplace, a marketplace where art and music are two of the United States' very strongest exports?" asked WASDA's Turner. "Education caps are endangering Wisconsin's economy future and must be changed."

The entire study
Resource Page on School Funding

Posted February 28, 2006