August 19, 2009
What does a perpetual budget crisis mean for our schools?
As the new school year gets underway, education is facing unprecedented challenges. I recently presented an “environmental scan” for members of the business community that collapses the many educational challenges into three major areas: lack of funding, an unacceptably wide achievement gap, and an ongoing, urgent need for relevancy. Let’s take them one at a time.
First, the lack of funding. California seems to be in perpetual budget crisis. A July 1993 Newsweek cover proclaimed: “California $38 billion in red – Will your state be next?” Does that sound familiar? Not much has changed since 1993 but the impact of the perpetual budget crisis has had an obvious negative effect, forcing major cuts year after year, and compounding the problems exponentially.
To help understand the impact of this perpetual financial crisis on our schools, one need only look at the fact that the typical American school has:
• 30% MORE teachers than California
• 61% MORE school site administrators than California, and
• 92% MORE counselors than California.
And these rankings do not factor in the fact that just since February, there has been $7.6 billion in actual cuts to school programs, $5 billion in lost COLAs, and $4.5 billion in deferrals. That’s $17 billion total.
Also since February, general purpose revenue to schools has been reduced by another $865 per student for the 2009-10 school year, or approximately $26,000 per classroom. This is about 18.4% below what state law calls for.
No matter what your perspective, it’s clear that lack of funding has serious consequences for students.
The second major challenge is the achievement gap, I strongly agree with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell who said, after examining the hard data, that California simply cannot afford to accept the persistent achievement gaps because these gaps are morally, economically, and socially untenable. He also pointed out that the gaps are not just among students of different socioeconomic status, but also among students of different races. As he said, we cannot afford to excuse these gaps; they simply must be addressed. “We must take notice and take action.”
Since the achievement gaps have been identified as both socioeconomic and racial, it is helpful to examine the trends in these areas for schools in Santa Barbara County: Students eligible for federally funded free and reduced lunches, as a percent of all students, rose from 34.1 percent countywide in 1993 to 51.8 percent in 2007, which is a 52 percent increase. The Latino population rose from 32.8 percent of the countywide student population in 1993 to 51.8 percent in 2007, a 78 percent increase. And 26 percent of our Hispanic children live below the poverty line. In fact, poverty has proven to be the single most significant indicator of academic achievement, which is unacceptable, and has serious consequences for the entire community. Clearly these figures illustrate the urgency of addressing this challenge.
The third major challenge is the relevance of education. Concerning relevancy, we need to ask three questions:
• Are schools teaching the knowledge, skills, and values that students need to be productive in the workplace and participate in a democratic society?
• Is our accountability system aligned with what students need to learn?
• Are students learning what they need in order to be the future innovators and leaders of our nation and economy?
Clearly the answer to all three questions is no. Business leaders in Santa Barbara County addressed these questions many years ago by surveying local businesses about what they felt were the elements for success in the workplace and society. Their common sense answer was what they called a triangle of success.
They drew a triangle with three equal sides: attitudes, skills, and knowledge. The side that represents attitudes included such work ethic traits as being cooperative, having high expectations, being enthusiastic, self-confident, honest, responsible, and reliable.
The second leg of the triangle represented skills, and included abilities such as goal-setting, reasoning, time management, and interpersonal communication.
The third side, an individual’s knowledge base, included the ABC s of what that individual knows; this was the core curriculum.
Business after business tells us that attitude is paramount. If you give them an employee with a good work ethic, they can train them to have the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job. Without that work ethic, the skills and knowledge aren’t as valuable.
The pressure on schools, and the accountability system, is strictly based on raising test scores around the core curriculum. This crowds out time in school for the exploration of values so essential in a democracy and for success in the workplace.
That’s where the cuts are taking their toll in terms of schools’ relevancy. We are witnessing major reductions in electives, the arts, and foreign languages. We are seeing major cuts in vocational/career education programs, and we all know there is increased pressure to ‘teach to the test’ to raise test scores, which takes away valuable time from a teacher’s ability to teach important knowledge that is not on the test. Sadly, with reduced time and resources, and with the increased pressure to ‘teach to the test’ to raise test scores, schools actually run the risk of becoming less relevant.
As part of the discussion we need to ask whether it is realistic to expect schools to do all of this alone. The answer is no. Schools can’t do it alone. The greatest challenges we have overcome as a nation and the great successes that we see in our county have at their core the concepts of innovation, leadership, and partnership. The Computers for Families program is a good example.
We need to harness the private sector’s creativity, innovation and effectiveness in a way that builds on and enhances the partnerships with education. We also need to help local schools prepare students in ways that are most directly relevant to the business community and the entire community.
We need to develop common-sense solutions, innovations, efficiencies, and an effective way of operating. Fortunately, in this county, that has always been our history and tradition.
Photographer Tom Fox once said, “A violent storm engulfed the mountain region. As dawn appeared, the storm broke, creating an amazing sunrise, reminding me of the possibilities for new light, vision. and opportunities.”
That’s exactly what we need now to face these daunting challenges: new light, vision, and opportunities. And we must do this in partnership with the entire community.
