A Tragedy for the Entire State

The tragedy of Florence’s school district dissolution vote is a tragedy for the entire state. This is true not just because we all suffer when any student’s education suffers, but because the circumstances that led to the closure are not unique to Florence. The Florence “death cycle” will infect many more districts unless we change our school finance system, particularly if the Legislature continues to block the governor’s attempts to address some of the system’s most significant flaws.

Death cycles are a consequence of the flawed system of revenue controls created in 1993. Revenue controls originally were designed as a five-year, stop-gap measure. The hastily drafted provisions tied local school revenue increases to enrollment figures and the consumer price index.

Unfortunately, revenue controls were premised on three flawed assumptions: first, that all students cost the same to educate; second, that schools and their needs do not change; and third, that a school can adjust its overall budget in a dollar-for-dollar manner for each new or lost student. Of course, as every educator knows, none of these assumptions are accurate and, over time, these flawed assumptions have eaten away at the foundations of certain districts.

Indeed, it is amazing that so many schools have succeeded despite working under the burdens the Legislature issued back in 1993.

So which school districts are likely to die under the current system?

First, the long-term prognosis is not good for districts with declining enrollment. Each time a student leaves a district the district must reduce its costs proportionately. But many school costs are fixed; buildings must be heated and maintained, and teachers and staff must be employed to teach each class. As a result, the district must cut programming; these cuts encourage students and their parents to enroll in other school districts, causing enrollment in their home districts to even further decline and triggering more program cuts.

Second, a district is in trouble if disadvantaged or disabled children live in it, particularly if the number of these children has increased since 1993. This is because these children typically cost more – sometimes much more – to educate. Since districts with high and increasing numbers of disadvantaged and disabled students do not receive any additional revenue control relief, they also must cut programming.

Finally, a district can face a death sentence for a host of other anomalies for which the revenue controls law does not provide. Schools that must bus students for long distances are facing acute financial problems because the cost of gasoline has increased so sharply. This is one of many school costs that exceed the cost of inflation.

The governor’s education and taxation task forces addressed many of these issues and have recommended solutions. The governor included some of these recommendations in his original 2005-07 state budget proposal, and provided support in dealing with declining enrollments, high-needs students and transportation. The governor’s budget allowed schools to survive while the state searches for a better funding system.

In the face of the current crisis, the Republicans in the Legislature proposed cutting allowable education spending increases to less than half of what is provided for under current law. Worse, their budget struck out all of the governor’s attempts to ameliorate problems associated with the current revenue controls law.

Apparently, these legislators decided there was more political value in cutting school spending and opposing the governor than in protecting children, particularly children who happen to be poor or unfortunate enough to live in a district with declining enrollment. The Republican Legislature sent the governor a budget that would have severely worsened the school funding crisis in Wisconsin. Fortunately for the children of Wisconsin, Governor Doyle used his veto pen to restore hundreds of millions of dollars to school funding and at least temporarily help protect schools from the type of fate that has befallen Florence.

Wisconsin gets great value from its public schools, and great schools benefit everyone because the students who are educated in them are the people who will drive our economy in the future. But beyond the long-term economic harm the Legislature would cause with its short-sighted political calculations is the question of whether it is right to punish children, families and communities because of their districts’ student demographics.

Most communities treasure their local schools and build community life around them. When schools shut their doors they leave a void that cannot be filled. And the collapse of a school in one district could trigger secondary death cycles in neighboring districts that suddenly must take on the burdens of the closed district.

The current system of revenue controls acts much like a grim reaper, targeting certain districts for extinction. The system must change.

Florence: Demise of a school district
Resource page on the 2005-07 state budget

Posted August 26, 2005