Should state have less say in local schools now that it’s paying less toward them?
Local taxes are now the largest funding source for schools in Georgia, raising questions about the balance of power. (AP Images)
The AJC has a story today that will not surprise local boards of education: For the first time in 16 years, local governments paid a higher share of the cost of public education than state governments.
In 2010, Georgia’s public schools received about 38 percent of their funding from the state, with local government paying about 48 percent. Federal and private sources accounted for the rest, according to the census report. In the past, the split has been about 55 state and 45 local.
The policy question now becomes: How much input should the state have in local education decisions and practices when it pays only 38 percent of the freight and less in high spending districts such as Decatur and Atlanta?
That has been the crux of the charter school battle: Should the state overrule local boards of education — which, in theory, represent the local voters and local taxpayers — and approve charter schools that then draw local funds?
It is always important to note in these discussions that the local money that underwrites schools does not come only from families with children in the schools. It comes from the entire community, childless couples, retirees and singles. I never understand the posters who come on the blog and insist that “It’s the parents’ money.”
Very few property owners in this state pay enough in property taxes to cover the full cost of educating even a single child; it requires a community pooling of resources to fund education.
According to the AJC:
Across the country, 44 percent of public education cost is covered by local governments, with the state paying 43.5 percent and the federal government paying 12.5 percent.
Georgia’s public primary and secondary schools got about 38 percent of their funding from the state, with local government paying about 48 percent. Federal and private sources accounted for the rest, according to the census report, which covers the year 2010.
Taxpayers feed both local and state coffers, but the size of those coffers is vastly different. The shift to more reliance on local government has many believing that the squeeze school districts have faced in recent years is not merely cyclical but a new normal.
“This is huge, ” Georgia Board of Education member Wanda Barrs said during a discussion about public education finances last week. “We are where we’ve never been before.”
The economic downturn reduced state revenue and led to budget cuts in multiple areas, including education. That left districts to rely more on local funding. Many districts, however, are seeing that local funding diminish because it is pegged to property taxes, and property values have sunk.
Legislators said public education has taken a hit in recent years. But so has the rest of state government, they argued.
“State revenue has gone down across the board, ” said state Sen. Fran Millar, chairman of the Georgia Senate’s Education and Youth Committee. “We have reduced funding for education the least. They’ve suffered the least cuts.”
Millar said district officials need to be more willing to make unpopular and difficult choices. “They’re going to have to look at raising millage rates, ” Millar said, adding that districts will also need to consider salary reductions and shrinking central-office staffs.
“There are no easy answers here, ” Millar said. “We don’t have the luxuries we once had. Some of these local systems, they need a reality check.”
Many officials in those districts don’t share that opinion. DeKalb County Schools just completed a long, painful budget process that underscored the tough choices districts face and the tough politics behind those choices. Lay off or furlough teachers? Increase class sizes? Increase tax rates?
“It’s frightening, ” said Eugene Walker, chairman of the DeKalb County School Board. “It’s getting worse. We have increased costs and decreased revenue.”
Walker pointed out that, in 2008-2009, one mill of property tax brought in $22 million. Now, after property values have been hammered in the bad economy, a mill is worth $16 million. That’s a 27 percent drop over four years.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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78 comments Add your comment
fran millar
July 24th, 2012
7:33 pm
Maureen, my comment for raising millage rates was for systems that presently have low rates – certainly not DeKalb. The majority of the DeKalb Board does not understand that it is critical they rebuild the surplus. Otherwise next year will be even worse since property values in DeKalb continue to drop. It is called living within your means – cut payroll starting with the central office bloat.
HS Math Teacher
July 24th, 2012
7:36 pm
If you have a school system where 5 out of 5 students go on to state colleges and regional universities, then the curriculum should be strong enough to meet this need. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have a school system where 1 out of 5 students go to either junior colleges or state colleges, another 1 out of 5 join the military, 2 out of 5 go to technical colleges, and 1 out of 5 dropout and either go to unskilled labor, or walking the streets, then the curriculum should be tailored to meet these needs, or situations.
A good number of poorer schools in the remote rural areas of Georgia do not have an accelerated curriculum to separate students so the productive ones can make significant progress. In these schools, there is only one path to get a diploma, and all these kids are packed in classes together, learning college prep math. This destroys both groups of students in the long run, and it’s wearing down teachers who are working on frayed nerves, coffee, medication, or whatever else. We had separate tracks years ago, and IT WORKED.
If you take a look at the average percent of students who passed the EOCT in Math II this year, it was 54%, which was a 1% drop from last year. If I’m not mistaken, to pass the exam, a student must answer a little over half the problems correctly. Furthermore, if you look at districts passing marks from around the state where there is high poverty, the average passing percentage was well below 50%. This is insane. It’s time to end this social experiment. It isn’t working! This isn’t China, where all the students coming out of school look like no. 2 pencils coming out of a pencil factory.
To be on topic, I would say that any move away from state control is a step in the right direction. When it comes to diploma pathways, the state should set forth some flexible options, and then get out of the way and let prominent, educated, common-sensed, local people – INCLUDING TEACHERS – decide what works best for their schools and communities.
A Teacher, 2
July 24th, 2012
7:40 pm
I am a teacher. I do not teach in DeKalb, Atlanta, or anywhere else in the metro area. I am NOT a member of GAE/NEA. Why do I always get painted with the same brush as people who fit any of those other categories. I also did not vote for Obama, or McCain, for that matter. If DeKalb, Clayton, Dougherty, and Atlanta City want craziness in their schools, why should the state legislate punishment on everybody because of these systems. If I tried to punish an entire class for the actions of a few, people would correctly be up in arms. Why is it okay to have sweeping state, or federal for that matter, laws that effect everyone that were originally designed to reign in a few. Why not just reign in the few??
Mary Elizabeth
July 24th, 2012
7:41 pm
Ron F., 7:04 pm
Thank you very much for your kind words. Thank you, also, for noticing my “passion for education” and for saying that it is “appreciated, applauded, and needed.” You are so wise to recognize that, for dedicated teachers, teaching isn’t simply a job, but is, instead, a lifetime commitment to serve others which doesn’t end when we “lay down the chalk for the last time.” Being a teacher is who we are.
Teachers hold the future in their hearts, minds, and hands. Teaching is a noble profession. That is why I passionately believe that the public must see the value in sustaining public education, whereby teachers can remain public servants, and not be turned into agents of profit for the mercenary and power interests of others.
There are powerful and wealthy forces within our nation, and state, who are trying to turn education into a “free market” enterprise in which teachers and students would be, ultimately, used for profit. Nevertheless, this state has been able to sustain, in spite of those powerful forces, the viability of public education.
For any legislators who may be reading my remarks, please know that I wanted to serve others with my life when I became a teacher in my twenties. I will be seventy in the fall. I did not seek to accrue personal wealth through my life’s efforts. I wanted to help others reach their potential. I loved every day of my 35 year teaching career. I have come from a long, long line of teachers, going as far back as my paternal great, great, great grandfather. If I were starting my life over today, I would still want to be a teacher, and I still would want to be part of that profession which seeks to bring wisdom, knowledge, and love into this world. I would want to be a public servant of the people. I do not want to see schools made into free market enterprises for profit. That belongs in the business world – not in education.
A Teacher, 2
July 24th, 2012
7:44 pm
@fran millar, So what if you are not in DeKalb, and you do not have a bloated central office, and you are forced to go to 20 mills and have 10 furlough days? What is the system supposed to do then? There are far more systems in this shape than in the shape of DeKalb!
Ron F.
July 24th, 2012
8:03 pm
“Being a teacher is who we are.”
Unfortunately, the state legislature doesn’t understand that, and is willing to discredit that drive for public service in favor of profit-making “competition.” My only hope is that we won’t rush headlong to copy Louisiana until we see the results.
MB
July 24th, 2012
8:09 pm
@ Kira The finance study commission is, it seems, trying to assimilate input from each group associated with K12 education to create a QBE replacement that makes more sense. At each meeting I’ve attended, or heard reports from, they reiterate “flexibility with accountability.”
Some minimal requirements are, sadly, needed, Even in these terrible economic times, school boards are approving the creation of any number of non-student-instruction, fully locally-funded positions (Deans of Students, Director of Football Operations) as they also approve raising class sizes, cutting counselors, media specialists, and parapro and adding furlough days.
Sorry, think the state HAS to stay involved; in fact, I’d argue (ref. DeKalb, Dougherty, etc.) that they need to have higher expectations and more consequences.
Now the federal government.. THAT is another story!
Brandy
July 24th, 2012
8:12 pm
@ME, I also want to offer my support in light of the current, insane and inappropriate, attacks on your character. We may not always agree (okay, we almost always do
), but I can tell that you are the kind of person who makes others want to be great teachers, too.
@Solutions, Why, pray tell should all teachers receive a 10% pay cut? Here in Cobb, we teachers make less than we made 4-5 years ago, even with more experience under our belts. The situation is the same in most, if not all, districts in this state. Oh, and we are not all lying, cheating, slobs off the street who are just in it for the bennies and $$$, as some posters would have you believe. Some of of us–actually many, if not most, of us–are dedicated, caring professionals who did not get into education to get rich–we wanted to make a difference in the lives of our students, just as teachers made a difference in our own lives. We do our darnedest and beyond to impart the knowledge our students need to live successful lives while also ensuring our students pass incredibly flawed tests and also being told endlessly that we are the problem–despite the fact that we spend far less time per year with children than their parents do (teachers: ~1260 waking hours per year; parents: ~3885 waking hours per year) and significantly less time with children over the 1st 18 years of their lives (teachers: ~16380 waking hours over 13 years; parents: ~69930 waking hours over 18 years). We teach the students who show up at the schoolhouse door–we can not send the “dumb” ones back, hand out brain transplants, pick and choice student racial or ethnic backgrounds, make up for a child’s never having been read to or never having bonded with a parental figure, give students a safe and secure home and bed, feed and clothe our students, make our students home lives more stable, ensure that every student comes from a traditional 2 parent family, make certain that our students come from English speaking homes and communities, or ensure that every child’s family is living above the poverty line. My colleagues and I are working harder than you have ever imagined. Don’t believe me? I challenge you to teach in a public school for 1 week, especially in a special education or ELL classroom. Then, report back on how incompetent we educators are and how easy we have it. I would never dream of telling you how to do your job (statistician, it seems) as I am certain you are a professional. Please do not presume to do the same to educators.
Brandy
July 24th, 2012
8:15 pm
Sorry, that should have read “pick and choose”.
I appologize ahead of time for any other errors I might have missed as I was typing on a SmartPhone.
FUBU
July 24th, 2012
8:42 pm
As a TEACHER and TAXPAYER, I urge a 10% pay increase for teachers!
bootney farnsworth
July 24th, 2012
9:09 pm
I’m gonna go against the grain and say yes, as the state abandons its constitutionally mandated responsibility, locals should have more control.
it is their money. its wrong and IMO unamerican to have local taxpayers carry the burden and some fool from the gold dome tell them what do to with their money.
on the other hand, freedom to make more decisions also means more responsibility to suffer their consequences.
Mary Elizabeth
July 24th, 2012
9:11 pm
@Brandy, 8:12 pm
“. . . I can tell that you are the kind of person who makes others want to be great teachers, too.”
========================================
Thank you for your kind words, Brandy. You could not have said anything that would have pleased me more than the words you posted, above. I hope that I have inspired teachers not to give up in their faith that teaching WILL have a renewal of respect in our nation, to continue believe in themselves, and to know that they are blessed to be the practitioners of one of the most noble professions on Earth.
I offer the poem, below, entitled “If,” by Rudyard Kipling to teachers, everywhere:
IF
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
———————————————————-
- or Woman, as the case may be.
——————————————————————————–
bootney farnsworth
July 24th, 2012
9:13 pm
I’m really tired of Millar running his yap. if he wants to make “tough decisions”, he can start at home.
once Frannie has cut his staff, taken at pay cut and furloughed himself for 8 unpaid days a year then
and only then
will I entertain his ideas.
bootney farnsworth
July 24th, 2012
9:16 pm
@ Mary Elizabeth
there’s another version I was taught by a buddy of mine who did a tour in Vietnam
basically if you can do all this and not lose your head
you obviously don’t grasp the deep doo doo of the situtation
Mary Elizabeth
July 24th, 2012
9:24 pm
@bootney farnsworth, 9:16 pm
mark
July 24th, 2012
9:47 pm
Preformace based pay for teachers will only work, if the money is there to be paided out. Not many of us “union teachers” are going to be willing to join that effort, if RTT is teated like national board certifed bonuses that were stripped away a few years back. The new norm for public education in funding at low levels will lead many companies out of Atlanta and back up north to those union states with twice the educations with higher taxes, many smart folks are willing to spend. Good luck Georgia.
Brandy
July 24th, 2012
10:15 pm
Too true, Mark. Places that truly desire quality public education invest in it fully–something that is unlikely to occur here in GA. Funny thing is, districts with unions and higher property taxes, often also have higher performing schools. Hmmm….
Fran's friend
July 24th, 2012
10:17 pm
Fran,
Let me first rspond by saying that there are hundreds of overworked and underpaid high quality teachers within this challenged school system.
Based on your comment you think that restoring a “Reserve” account is considered a surplus? Let me give you the definition of a surplus.
“something that remains above what is used or needed.” The key word in the definition is needed. We need more high quality teachers that deserve more compensation instead of cutting their pay, retirements and adding costly benefits to them.
Now let me give you the definition of reserve, as in a cash reserve account for the school system.
a. cash, or assets readily convertible into cash, held aside, as by a corporation, bank, state or national government, etc., to meet expected or unexpected demands.
b. uninvested cash held to comply with legal requirements.
So here is the difference Senator, we do not have a surplus of cash in DeKalb. We have a surplus of “Friends and Family” employees who are robbing our children of their legal right to a public education!
We have a surplus of overpaid, incompetent employees who think they are deserving/entitled to a job based on their familial relations or membership and affiliation to an organization.
What we need is a reserve of cash in our school budget which is required by law to adequately educate our children. We also need a reserve of highly motivated and educated teachers who can overcome the low pay, lower morale and incompetency of our current system who think everything is wonderful in DCSD.
I suggest you go to the voting booth and vote the “Incumbents Out” next Tuesday. Since you live in the very affluent part of Dunwoody, you can only vote for Dr. Speaks and not any of the other school board races.
If you want to make a difference for DeKalb County students, start next tomorrow by advocating for reworking the equalization formula that sends over $40,000,000 annually from DeKalb to Gwinnett. I know you have the best intentions and will work hard to make DCSD a great school system again.
Respectfully,
Your friend.
CL
July 24th, 2012
10:23 pm
more waste, fraud and abuse in DeKalb…Is anyone surprised
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/principal-bookkeeper-under-investigation-after-aud/nP3Rb/
Dred Scott
July 24th, 2012
11:29 pm
Read the truth: http://www.betterGAschools.org
My choice
July 25th, 2012
12:01 am
Get educated on the amendment…..www.bettergaschools.org
Melanie
July 25th, 2012
12:55 am
The state should step up to the plate and put more funding into direct instruction. State should be major funder with local boards doing the administration. All those fake programs and administatrion at the State Dept. of Ed. is totally unnecessary. Wasted money.
Funding education excellence is a long way off in Georgia and getting farther away | Get Schooled
July 25th, 2012
3:31 am
[...] about 60 to 55 percent percent of real costs of education while local communities paid 40 percent. Today, the state is only footing 38 percent of the education tab in Georgia. (It’s important to note that one percentage point represents well over a hundred million [...]
crankee-yankee
July 25th, 2012
6:58 am
Solutions
July 24th, 2012
7:13 pm
Were I to punish my entire class for some perceived wrong a few students committed, not only would I have no support from my administration, but I would have parents crawling all over my back, and rightfully so. I suspect you would be leading that charge. Yet you espouse that very line of reasoning in the reverse. See a problem in the logic?
Pride and Joy
July 25th, 2012
9:20 pm
Let’s take this argument to it’s logical conclusion. If you pay more, you get more control, then people who pay the most property and income taxes should have the most control over the public schools. I pay enormously. I’m taxed to smithereens in both income and property taxes…yet, I have zero say so. Zero control. I can’t vote out the incumbents on the school board because I lack the biggest factor — I’m not black. The blacks overwhelmingly control all politics in Atlanta and I am just one of the few suckers who has to pay for all the greed. Dear Lord, why did I ever buy into that “diversity is good” policy.
I want out as soon as I can sell my underwater house in Dekalb and my underwater house in Atlanta.
Pride and Joy
July 26th, 2012
8:21 am
To Just can’t make you believe: YOu wrote to Don and said “@Don H; for the millionth time there are NO!!!!!!! teachers unions in Georgia.”
You’re right about no teacher’s unions but here in GA the effect is still the same. To fire a teacher is rare and an arduous process. Even teachers here in GA complain that bad teachers aren’t given the boot. So whether or not there is a union in GA or not, is a moot point. The “protections” afforded teachers keep really bad teachers in the system long after they should have been fired. The teaching profession is no different than any other profession in that there are good (Mary Elizabeth) and bad (my kids’ teachers) employees. The difference is, in my industry, if an employee screws up, they’re history. In the teaching profession in GA, if an employee is rotten, they more than likely stay and continue to rot the profession.
Ole Guy
July 29th, 2012
1:11 am
Unfunded/underfunded mandates is nothing new. The question(s) should be 1) who will be answerable/held accountable, and 2) as with the demise of NCLB, will locales have an input as to what works and what don’t. Mandates, from the state level, may or may not be applicable nor workable at particular local systems.
kevin3
August 6th, 2012
10:10 am
For years schools accross America has been at the forefront of major and serious discussions. We have focus on the wrong projects such as this TSPLOST rather than trying to fix our school system. That to me is more important than anything! We have really fallen down here in America…children in Korea continue to go to school year round and are far along than ours are. Is it an individual or personal thing that we can’t fix our school system, is it racism, is it about the (have(s) and have(s) not?) To many schools pose a problem for the GA Education Commissioners or whoever is in charge of the school system; is it about making six figures and bonus rather than looking out for the children…the problems lies somewhere and overall it has to be really addressed with positive actions. Building, knocking down, fixing up, moving children, closing schools etc., it is a complete mess! We have to begun to be honest with ourselves; money has cause a lot of problems and there are other resources that could be used in order to begun correcting our education system! Why not use them.