Assessing the damage to education by 2012 Legislature
Joe Martin
With the General Assembly wrapping up last night in its usual frenzy, school financing expert Joseph Martin sent me this op-ed this morning.
(He sent two copies, one with footnotes and one without. I am not including the footnotes here, but Martin has provided documentation for his figures. He is ready for the AJC Truth-O-Meter.)
Martin has been a longtime voice for public education; he was president of the Atlanta Board of Education, a leader on several state commissions, head of the Georgia School Funding Association and an unsuccessful candidate for state School Superintendent. And he helped design the current Georgia funding formula, Quality Basic Education, which, of course, has never been fully funded.
He has been called upon many times to testify at the Capitol on school financing. I think it is fair to say that Martin, a Democrat, is respected by members of both parties for his expertise.
By Joseph Martin
The State of Georgia is undermining our public schools. This may seem like an exaggeration, but the facts are clear. So, what really happened during the last session of the General Assembly?
The most heated issue was a fight over who gets to authorize charter schools, but this is still a distraction from the larger story. Nothing was done to reverse the steady erosion of state support to our schools over the last decade.
The reduction in school days, the additional furlough days, the increases in class sizes, and the cuts in programs will grow worse in the upcoming school year, especially since local systems can no longer rely on rising property taxes to cover the deficits in state funding.
State allotments to local systems are 26% less on a per-student, inflation-adjusted basis than they were ten years ago. Because of an unrealistic formula with another $1.1 billion in “austerity cuts,” a typical class is losing over $30,000 a year.
Some systems have been able to make up the difference from local resources, but most can’t. Moreover, the formula to assist the least wealthy systems in Georgia was quietly cut by 41% solely because “this is all we can afford.” The students in these systems will never catch up.
The State is systematically reducing its investment in our schools under the pretense that it doesn’t have enough funds, while the wave of tax cuts and exemptions never ceases. Our legislators cut taxes again this year without ever asking how the State will meet its obligations.
We are harming our children, sapping the vitality of our economy, and relegating our state to an inferior status. Three out of every ten students in Georgia are not graduating from high school with a regular diploma. Is this the path to a prosperous future?
It is essential to have capable teachers, effective leaders, active parents, and sound policies, but they do not replace the need for adequate resources. Georgia spends considerably less per student than the national average, and the only way to make further reductions is to decrease teacher salaries and increase class sizes. Administrative costs have already been slashed in most systems.
No sensible person would ever advocate spending more without expecting results, but it’s equally foolish to pretend that our schools can perform their vital mission without paying our teachers a reasonable salary, assisting the students who need extra help, and offering a full curriculum.
The concepts of “choice” and “flexibility” are touted as easy answers to the challenges facing our schools. Of course, parents should have more choices, and our schools should be freed from unnecessary regulations. But the real question is how to serve all of our students and not just some. Charter schools can be effective, but are not a substitute for improving all of our schools.
Some are calling for vouchers that would benefit the students who are accepted by private schools and can afford the tuition not covered by the voucher. Georgia taxpayers are already allowed to “divert” their tax payments to entities that support private schools, with no accountability or disclosure about who benefits.
Our state is slipping backward, and many of our children are not getting the education they need and deserve. Changes have to be made, but the need for adequate support by the State cannot be ignored. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, nor is it an urban or rural issue. It is crucial to the future of our state. Do we really want good schools for our children?
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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57 comments Add your comment
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
March 31st, 2012
1:54 am
“Too many chefs spoil the broth.”
That old saw’s an accurate description of the state of PubEd in GA.
Our other elected officials must get out and stay out of John Barge’s way. Team Barge will lead improvements in the integrity, efficacy and efficiency of our state’s public schools- if we insist that our legislators and governors stay away from John’s “broth.”
concerned
March 31st, 2012
4:59 am
Milton Man you seem to assume that there are no engineers who go into teaching as a second career. I wonder how engineers got to even learn about engineering without teachers. Family of engineers that sprang from a family of educators and always raised with the idea that great teachers were to be held with great respect as they open doors for the future. So glad that I was raised that way and when a reality tv star gets millions of dollars for showing up and acting up, what does this say about our society for engineers or teachers.
Tony
March 31st, 2012
11:00 am
Thank you, Joe Martin, for speaking the truth with clarity, reason, and facts. It is a shame that facts are ignored by so many people. It is also a shame that instead of countering with facts, some posters choose to use ad hominem attacks instead.
The politicians in Georgia are deliberately underfunding education and passing out more tax breaks to their richest supporters. Since actions speak louder than words, it is easy to tell that our politicians have no real interest in improving public education. Instead they are playing games.
I'm a teacher
March 31st, 2012
11:45 am
In a way the teachers of Georgia and the rest of the nation have failed. We have failed to produce a general population that can think critically – that can look past the spin and see the core issues. Are there bad teachers? yes but fewer than many of the negative bloggers here would have you believe. Does all the negativity being spouted about the profession hurt the good teachers? You better believe it does.
Throwing money at education is not the answer because most of the “thrown” money never makes it to where it can do the most good. Do we need some kind of merit pay? that would be great but if you look at what is proposed as the basis of the current merit pay criteria – it has very little to do with rewarding good teachers – it is based more on rewarding the teachers the administrators want to keep (due to the fact the administration gets to decide what students go where – which will greatly influence how test scores shake out)
We as teachers understand hard economic times – we really do – many of us even teach economics. The problem with what the legislation has done is the fact that they continually pass legislation that adds to the financial cost of education but then fail to fund those changes and in hard economic times – instead of reducing or waiving some of the costly mandates – they add to them. Now who doesn’t understand economics – the schools or the legislators?
Tony
March 31st, 2012
12:26 pm
The fallacy of comparing engineers to teachers as an argument against adequate funding.
First and most obvious, teachers and engineers have totally different skill sets. This makes any comparison between the two groups totally irrelevant from the beginning. Yes, engineers are highly skilled in mathematics, applied physics, and other subject matter. Teachers are also highly trained with specific skills: pedagogy, curriculum organization, learning theory, applied reading theory, and according to the level of instruction advanced training in specific content such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, history, literature, or other topics.
As for creating the allusion that one is more productive than another, a skilled engineer would immediately know there is no way to compare the productivity between the two because there is not a common metric. Simply basing the argument on “engineers are superior to teachers” is not an argument of fact and has no basis as a standard for comparison.
Engineers and teachers are not interchangeable parts. This means that you can not expect one to be able to take the place of the other when it comes to carrying out their functions. That is like saying you can attach the front seat of a car to the hub of a wheel and expect it to roll like a wheel. It is simply an irrelevant statement.
The use of ad hominem attacks in attempt to discredit the person making the presentation of facts is an example of using very poor judgement. What that means is simple. The person making the attacks has no credible, factual evidence to offer so they call them names or compare them to things people despise in order to discredit the information being presented.
Ridiculous arguments and ad hominem attacks that fan the flames of emotions do not foster the kinds of discussions we need to have to improve our schools.
Brandy
March 31st, 2012
2:58 pm
MiltonMan is also forgetting the engineers who can’t find jobs in their fields and become teachers! I have a good friend who did this after graduating–he had the grades and the credentials, even internships and such, but he wanted to live and work where he grew up in Alabama. No open positions for engineers in his field in the town (this was before the Great Recession, btw), so he applied to become a mathematics teacher. He actually likes teaching more than engineering, despite the lower pay and lower prestige. He’s a wonderful teacher and a wickedly smart mathematics educator.
Just the Facts
April 1st, 2012
8:46 am
How much does the amount of spending per pupil affect graduation rates?
…. Not nearly as much as these other factors: class size, single family vs two parent households, and median income of the household.
Georgia has too many kids in a classroom that are growing up in poverty all the while living within a culture that does not place an emphasis on education.