A Disinvestment to Public Schools

By WEAC President Terry Craney

This column originally ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel October 30, 1997

Wisconsin's Department of Corrections declared a small victory last month. The cost of keeping a felon in a state prison for a year dropped from $20,000 to $19,000. Of course, the reason for that small success is that the state has doubled the number of prisoners it had 10 years ago -- so the per-inmate cost is dropping.

That figure sounds like good news for Wisconsin taxpayers, until we remember it is more than triple the amount of money Wisconsin spends to educate each child in the state. We are making prisons a higher priority than our investment in public education.

Yes, schools are expensive and their costs are growing each year. But we must ask ourselves: What's the cost of failure?

For taxpayers, who see slightly more than half of property taxes go to pay for local schools, this is not an academic question. This is a basic pocket-book question of how we invest in our children -- and in our future.

Today, schools face state-imposed revenue controls. That means schools are limited in what they can collect and spend on students. Not only do revenue controls undermine the authority of local school boards to determine what's best for their communities, revenue controls are forcing districts to cut vital programs and services.

There is another long-term problem with revenue controls. That is their impact on our ability to pay for the education of special needs and at-risk children. Those children are the most expensive to educate. They are the children who consume much of schools' non-academic spending such as counseling, health, transportation, and special education.

Revenue controls force a broader question: What is the cost of disinvestment in schools?

One of the strengths of Wisconsin's education system is that it tries to reach every child, not just the smartest or the easiest to educate. The success of the system is impressive. Wisconsin has one of the nation's highest graduation rates -- and those who graduate from Wisconsin schools are among the best on national measures of success such as SAT and ACT scores. Those who aren't college-bound are well-prepared for technical schools and skilled jobs. A well-educated workforce is one reason industries move to Wisconsin, and it is a major reason the state's unemployment rate is minuscule and its economy healthy.

The correlation between high spending and success isn't a straight line. But there is a direct link between low spending and lack of academic achievement. And the price of failure is profound.

Texas, for example, has done an impressive job of keeping its school costs low. Yet in Texas, one out of every six adults is either in prison, on probation or on parole. In California, celebrated for its propositions to slash property taxes, the cost of its prison system now outstrips the cost of its statewide university system.

Wisconsin, by contrast, has not succumbed to easy slash-the-budget responses to school costs. But revenue controls starts us in that direction -- and that's a road that makes everyone nervous.

We simply can't pretend there aren't trade-offs. We can pay now and give as many children as possible the tools to become productive, tax-paying citizens. Or we can pay later in the form of expanding prisons, welfare programs and exploding social costs. Schools aren't only less expensive per person than prisons and welfare in Wisconsin. They are also a much better investment for everyone.

Posted November 7, 1997