February 12, 2008
Battling the beast of budgetIt's no secret that tough economic times are a-comin' (in some places, they're already here). This article came to us by way of the Associated Press and highlights just how those economic woes might affect school districts nationwide.
With times tight all over the place, already-strapped school districts are looking at ways to tighten belts without cutting vital programs. In California, for instance, where a $4 billion cut has been proposed, tensions are high.
"It would decimate education as it exists right now," said Paul Chatman, a school board member from Ocean View, Calif.Chatman said some of the district's new teachers, who aren't protected by seniority rules, will lose their jobs, even if the governor's cuts are scaled back as expected.
"It's unavoidable," he said glumly. "Those are going to be the ones that are going to have to go."
Other desirable school programs are on the chopping block as well. Chatman said efforts to reduce class sizes will probably be slashed. A block scheduling program, in which students study subjects for longer periods, may be scrapped altogether because it relies on extra teachers to make it work.
And it's not just cuts, either.
A projected shortfall in Minnesota's budget also has education officials there worried, said Jackie Magnuson, a school board member from the Minneapolis suburb of Rosemount.She said school districts around the state would likely try to persuade voters to approve increased taxes for school funding, but she said those kind of ballot initiatives wouldn't pass easily.
"They're not going to be in any real particular hurry to run and help support the schools and pay for increased taxes for you, even if they'd like to, because they're already up to their eyeballs (in bills)," she said.
Operating costs, salaries and benefits, and rising energy prices are making it harder and harder for school districts to make ends meet.
Laura Hall, a school board member from Marion, Va., said the increasing cost of operating schools means level funding or slightly increased funding amounts to a cut. She said she thinks her small school district in the mountains of southern Virginia will be able to pass a budget this year without drastic cuts. But she said she worries about what will happen if the economic trends continue."In the back of my heart, I'm really nervous about what comes next," she said. "We haven't seen the bottom yet."
Chatman, president of the California School Boards Association, Magnuson, president of Minnesota School Boards Association; and Hall, president of Virginia School Boards Association attended NSBA's FRN Conference in Washington, D.C. last week, which aimed getting members of Congress to increase education funding and reauthorize NCLB prior to the Presidential election.
Posted at 1:29 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
July 28, 2006
AP Calculus, brought to you by VerizonCash-strapped schools are no laughing matter. But this article in USA Today did make BoardBuzz smile, a little. In these days of corporate sponsorship, where the U.S. Olympic team is backed by McDonald's and arenas around the country are financed by gigantic corporations, shouldn't schools be a safe haven, free from commercial intrusions?
Seems that Sheboygan South High School in Wisconsin has turned to corporate sponsors to finance its field house. The article also notes that "Kitchens at two high schools here will soon be called the Kohler Credit Union kitchens, thanks to a $45,000 donation. The cafeterias are up for grabs for $300,000." (Quick! Someone ring Purina Puppy Chow!)
Wisconsin is not alone, either. "In Newburyport, Mass., the high school offers naming rights to the principal's office for $10,000, the auditorium for $100,000 and English classrooms for $5,000 each, according to its foundation's website."
Do we kiss John F. Kennedy High School goodbye and say hello to High School sponsored in part by ExxonMobil? What are your thoughts?
Posted at 2:37 PM | Link to this story | Comments (2)
May 17, 2006
NSBA partners to promote PAYSCHOOLNSBA announced this week that it will partner with Local Government Services, Inc. (LGS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iowa Association of School Boards, to sponsor PAYSCHOOLS to school board associations and member districts across the country.
PAYSCHOOLS is a web-based online payment system that allows parents to pay for school lunches and other school fees over the internet. PAYSCHOOLS is also endorsed by the New York School Boards Association, Pennsylvania School Boards Association, and the Iowa Association of School Boards.
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May 15, 2006
ASBJ reports on soaring health care, pension costsForget unfunded mandates. The new menace for local school districts may be unfunded liabilities for benefits. New federal accounting rules requiring districts to set aside money for future retiree benefits are threatening districts' fiscal stability. For example, Los Angeles Unified School District's unfunded benefits liability has grown by $10 billion in just 18 months. Add this to skyrocketing health care costs and you have what the American School Board Journal calls a gathering storm.
May's cover story says that the rising cost of benefits is squeezing other parts of school district's overall compensation plans. And the solution, the article notes, is for districts to be up front with the public about financial struggles.
Posted at 2:17 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
March 22, 2006
School districts hunt for affordable housing for teachersSkyrocketing home prices have made it difficult for teachers to come to Florida, a state where teacher salaries are $6,000 below the national average. School district leaders say they are struggling to attract teachers, even as they try to meet restrictions on class sizes that voters approved four years ago.
"It's not just in the coastal areas," where housing costs have jumped the highest, Jack Lamb, president of the Florida School Boards Association, tells AP. "It's in any area that's experiencing growth."
But at least some help may be on the way. Teachers, firefighters, and other workers struggling to find affordable housing in high-cost areas like Florida's Manatee County could get a boost from the state under a bill moving through the Legislature.
The bill, which has three more scheduled committee stops, would provide incentives for public-private partnerships to find and maintain affordable housing for targeted individuals and areas across the state, reports the Bradenton Herald. Cities, counties, and school districts in high-cost areas could partner with the private sector to keep housing costs down. The Florida School Boards Association supports the measure. Counties eligible for housing assistance are those where the median sale price of a single-family home is above the statewide average.
In Palm Beach County, Fla., local commissioners just yesterday approved a plan to force builders to construct less expensive homes in new developments. "The builders are going to hate it. The Realtors are going to hate it. Too bad," a county commissioner is quoted in the Palm Beach Post. "We've got to do what's right for the county and that's to diversify these units." The paper reports that the plan will result in only about 5,000 affordable houses being built, far less than is needed in the pricey county.
Posted at 2:02 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
Senate restores education fundingThis just in ... the Senate has voted to approve the amendment to the FY2007 budget resolution that will add $7 billion to the budget for education and healthcare, and restore program cuts in Title I and IDEA. The amendment, co-sponsored by Senators Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), restores funding back to the FY2005 levels. Details from yesterday's BoardBuzz here.
In his remarks today, Sen. Specter noted that funding for education and other programs under the Departments of Health and Human Services and Labor "has been decimated since 2005. Health and education are the two major capital assets of the country. We have gone beneath the muscle, beneath the bone, and into the marrow" with these cuts.
Finally, a voice of reason on Capitol Hill.
Posted at 3:27 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
March 15, 2006
Critical education funding vote expected todayAlthough it is early in the annual appropriations process in Congress, a vote expected later today could be the most important one of the year for education funding. Senators Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are expected to offer an amendment that would increase the budget cap on discretionary spending by $7 billion, with part of that going for education. Without it, the education funding picture for FY2007 is not pretty. This could be the only realistic opportunity to increase funding for education this year.
School board members and public school advocates nationwide have responded to calls to action and are urging their senators to support the Specter-Harkin amendment to the 2007 budget resolution that is expected to be voted on today. Please join them if you haven't already. For more information check out NSBA's letter to the Senate.
Posted at 1:32 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
We are 100 percent certain: This plan won't help kidsThe Georgia House last week approved Gov. Sonny Perdue's bill to require local school systems to spend at least 65 percent of their money in classrooms, pushing the plan close to final passage, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "What you're doing with this bill is you're telling local people what they can do with local money," AJC quotes state Rep. Ellis Black, a former chairman of his local school board. "As noble as the purpose of this bill is, it isn't going to get you there."
The plan's godfather calls it "simple and intuitive." But it turns out what it is really about is something a bit more obvious.
"It's about politics," state Rep. Alan Powell told the AJC. "I have no problems with this proposition, except this will probably be another nail in the coffin of local school systems."
Well, we do have a problem with this silliness. Here is but one road bump on the way to world dominance for this effort: A couple months back, Standard & Poor's found "no empirical evidence." And on the way in Minnesota: the 70 percent solution.
Posted at 3:34 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
January 26, 2006
IDEA full funding: New life?Senators Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) reintroduced legislation Wednesday to meet the federal government's commitment to fund 40 percent of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
The Hagel-Harkin bill would fully fund IDEA in five years through mandatory annual phased-in spending increases, until federal funding reaches $26.1 billion in Fiscal Year 2011. The bill would free up local and state funds that had previously been used to meet IDEA requirements for other important education priorities. So as the federal IDEA share grows, local school districts will have increased flexibility for all their education programs. More details here.
Posted at 12:48 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
January 9, 2006
Is Schwarzenegger's education investment plan adequate?Not quite, says California School Boards Association Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin. But things may be headed in the right direction. Schwarzenegger made it known that he will seek major increases in school spending by boosting K-12 funding by $4.3 billion to almost $11,000 per student, reports this timeline and analysis from the Contra Costa Times:
School officials agreed to accept $2 billion less than mandated by Proposition 98 in Schwarzenegger's first budget. However, they expected the governor to fully fund schools in the current year. He did not, mainly because there were insufficient funds and he did not want to raise taxes and undermine the economic recovery that was starting in the state.Now that the economy has become a lot healthier, the money is there to pay back the debt, accommodate inflation and enrollment growth, and also provide funds for important education programs.
As we pointed out last month, the thaw between the governor and education groups may be beginning. More details and reaction here from the Los Angeles Times.
Posted at 2:54 PM | Link to this story | Comments (0)
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