Hard Numbers and Hard Choices

By Terry Craney, WEAC President

Imagine how difficult it would be for a school administrator to decide between buying textbooks and fixing the leak in the school roof, or between buying enough computers and controlling class sizes. According to a recent survey, those are the choices Wisconsin’s school superintendents are forced to make every day because of the state government’s over-regulation of local school budgets.

Every year since 1993 the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators (WASDA) have jointly surveyed the state’s school superintendents to assess the impact state-imposed revenue controls are having on our children’s education. I find the hard numbers in the survey hard to swallow. But they confirm everything I have been hearing from teachers, parents and school administrators all over the state about the difficulty of maintaining our excellence under the state regulations.

On the positive side, 75 percent of Wisconsin’s superintendents responded to the survey this year, representing 321 of the state’s school districts. School superintendents are busy people, and the fact that so many of them took the time to complete the survey is an indication of how important these questions are.

The survey found that a majority of the superintendents are forced to make cuts in building infrastructure. Indeed, 64 percent were forced to cut back on buildings and grounds improvements. Another 62.6 percent were forced to spend less for maintenance, and 60.4 percent delayed building maintenance and improvement projects.

About 80 percent of the superintendents said these cuts had a negative effect on their schools. These numbers raise obvious concerns about building safety and the long-term costs of shortening a building’s life.

There are other numbers I find alarming. More than 56 percent of the superintendents reduced or delayed the purchase of textbooks last year. Another 59.1 percent reduced or delayed the purchase of computers or other technology equipment. Almost half – 48 percent – increased class sizes due to budget constraints, even though we all know smaller classes improve learning.

Additionally, 65 percent of the superintendents said revenue caps are causing conflicts and disagreements between special education programs and regular education programs. Revenue caps pit students, parents, teachers and community members against each other at a time when we need to bring them closer together.

Wisconsin’s tradition of great schools was built upon local decision making. Local communities are better able than the state government to assess their own needs and make decisions about their budgets, and the state errs when it forces communities to abide by arbitrary limits.

When it comes to our schools and our children there is a great risk of being penny wise and pound foolish, and revenue caps are the perfect illustration of that. It is not cost effective to impose revenue controls that seriously undermine the programs and services our school children need in order to succeed in the future.

All of the fat has long since been trimmed away from local school budgets. Now the state is forcing our schools to cut into bone and muscle.