Progress or retreat on education?
Posted on Sunday, May 15, 2005
Abrighter future for Arkansas and our people depends upon our efforts to improve our school system. The Arkansas Supreme Court’s Lake View decision of November 2002 spawned tremendous effort to capitalize on this rare moment of opportunity for our state.
The court ruled that our public school system was unconstitutional in terms of equity and adequacy. On equity, the court determined that educational opportunity for far too many Arkansas children was an accident of residence, that the disparities across the state were too great. Concerning adequacy, the court said that the state had not determined or provided the resources necessary for our schools to provide an adequate opportunity. In short, every child is entitled to equal access to an adequate educational opportunity.
It’s sad, but true that the momentum to improve our schools has almost always come from a court ruling in the past. Because of our poverty and low educational attainment as compared to America, there’s a cycle at work in Arkansas that breeds an acceptance of mediocrity in generation after generation. Legislators and governors worry about re-election, school administrators protect jobs, parents are seemingly unaware of the inadequacies of our schools, and communities fret about losing school districts. Meanwhile, the gap in achievement between Arkansas and the nation persists.
Nevertheless, we’ve made great progress since the decision. In the current school year we’ve added $380 million to the school system. Next year we’ll add $170 million, and then in the 2006/07 school year, we will add another $98 million. In addition to these new operating funds, we’ve appropriated $104 million to begin our new school facilities program. This totals $752 million of new spending in our school system in the current and next two school years. Total K-12 spending is now 53 percent of total state general and dedicated revenues, an alltime high.
But our progress must not be defined solely in terms of dollars. We also need better school management. We’ve targeted new investments to key purposes. We raised state-mandated minimum teacher salaries 26 percent this year. We instituted a pre-k program to better prepare children for school success. We targeted additional funding to districts that serve our most challenged students as defined by poverty rates. We provided new funding to districts offering alternative learning environments or serving students with language barriers. We provided new funding to support the use of technology in our schools and to provide training to support our teachers. We just appropriated $35 million per year to offer a more competitive health insurance benefit to our teachers.
School district consolidation was a hotly debated topic, and in the end, we did less than many thought was required in order to use our school dollars wisely. Small districts successfully pleaded for a chance to meet standards and survive. Faced with difficult political realities, the Legislature acquiesced and did much less restructuring than the Governor proposed. All districts with less than 350 students were required to consolidate. It was the first time in the state’s history that the Legislature had mandated school consolidation.
The Legislature defined the resources needed in every school, and then adopted a new funding formula that assures a consistent level of resources across the state to provide adequate opportunity. Communities can pass voluntary, local taxes to provide resources to their schools beyond this level. Loopholes were closed that previously allowed school districts to skirt state standards. The formula demands efficiency, and if the district fails to meet standards because it is poorly managed or simply has too few students with which to spread its fixed costs, the Department of Education has new authority to intervene and insist on corrective action. We are now funding strictly on a "per student"basis; if a district loses students, we don’t penalize students across the state by continuing to fund at old levels in districts with declining enrollment. The formula insists that districts be good managers and make tough choices.
New accounting standards were also adopted. The court emphasized that it’s not sufficient for the state to simply send money to the districts. The state must also monitor how money is spent at the local level. Following the completion of this school year, the state will review the management and use of funds, assure that state standards are being met, pay close attention to the choices districts are making to improve student achievement, and update the calculations used to determine the cost of providing the required resources in every school.
There were efforts in this year’s Regular Session of the Legislature to retreat from our recent progress. Some wanted to repeal the requirement of art and music instruction by certified personnel, others wanted to reinstate the loophole that allowed districts to teach less curriculum. There were proposals to dilute our teacher professional development requirements and to retreat from our requirement that all high schools offer Advanced Placement courses. Every one of those proposals failed.
Now there are voices of protest from 46 school districts across the state. They claim the Legislature did too little, that we have not adequately responded to the Lake View decision.
A closer look at two of these complaining districts, using information published by the Arkansas Department of Education, is helpful (see chart above).
Forrest City receives more per student state funding than Rogers from the formula because the state’s mandated 25 mill property tax produces more revenue per student in Rogers than in Forrest City. The formula is designed to levelize these wealth differences.
The unusual spike in funding in Forrest City in 2005 deserves some explanation. The district took advantage of a flaw in the state’s funding formula. The Legislature intended to send additional funds to high-poverty districts based on the actual percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunches. Forrest City used a Federal provision that allowed the district to claim 100 percent of its students eligible in order to reduce Federal paperwork. The district’s actual percentage of eligible students is 75 percent. The flaw has been corrected, but in 2005 the district received a one-time windfall in state funding of $2.8 million. But even after the loss of the windfall, their per student funding is up 29.4 percent in 2006 over 2004. Eight of the 10 districts who received this windfall are now a part of the 46 complaining districts.
It should also be pointed out that these funding numbers do not include significant new funds benefiting these districts outside of the funding formula. This includes new funding for teacher health insurance, pre-k programs, and school facility assistance.
Of the 46 complaining districts, 25 have less than 900 students. These are the districts who pleaded for their chance a year ago, but now that the court has made its exit, they’re back demanding that the state subsidize their inefficiency. They are under the gun, for they know they can’t meet state standards without more money. For the state to fund them, regardless of efficiency issues, would be to penalize every other student in the state. It would also ignore the clear language of our constitution that requires a "general, suitable and efficient system of e public schools."
These tiny school districts are between the proverbial rock and hard place. If they are unsuccessful with their litigation, they are going to constantly struggle to meet standards, and once they are classified as fiscally or academically distressed, the state will intervene. But if they win, the issue of consolidation will surely move to the forefront again. Their best choice is to focus on student achievement rather than school survival.
Of the 46 complaining districts, 30 have declining enrollment. These districts, through no fault of their own, are serving parts of the state with declining population. They are faced with tough, unpleasant decisions about reducing staff, facilities and overhead expenses. But they must do so. Our state cannot afford to squander limited school dollars by funding phantom students. It would be wonderful if they were more willing to explore the option of joining with a neighboring district to better utilize resources and serve students.
There’s always the argument that more could be done. For some, criticizing the Legislature seems to be a favorite sport. But I believe your Legislature deserves credit for some remarkable progress in choosing policies that will serve our students and state well in the future. Legislators from all over Arkansas have worked very hard to build a school system focused on results. With your support, we can stay the course and reap the certain rewards from improved schools.
With all it has accomplished, the claim that the Legislature has retreated from school reform is unfounded. Yes, more must be done. School reform is a long term process. There’s no silver bullet: no cheap, simple cure. But it is vital for the public to understand this reality; money alone will not fix our schools. Yes, adequate money is vital, but we must also have improved priorities, better leadership and management in our 254 school districts, and a system that holds schools accountable for results. We are simply too poor as a state to spend our way through bad choices and inefficiencies.
If we’re to realize the dream of closing the student achievement gap between Arkansas and the nation, we’re going to have to make our dollars work harder and smarter. Legislators, educators and parents must join together, abandon the priorities that have failed our state, and share a vision of a brighter future for Arkansas.
Jim Argue, Jr. is President Pro Tempore of the Arkansas Senate and chairs the Senate Education Committee. He has served in the Arkansas Legislature since 1991.
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