Make Democracy Work

Published Friday, February 18, 2005 as “Higher costs test school” and Wednesday, February 23, 2005 as “Kyrene victim of tightfisted legislature.” in different editions of East Valley Opinions of the Arizona Republic.

As we entered the Kyrene Middle School cafeteria for a public forum last week, we were serenaded by an orchestra and handed a leaflet, a musical protest to the conflict between a stingy legislature and an out of control accountability system.

Much angst is rippling through Arizona due to the impending AIMS graduation requirement to be hoisted upon the class of 2006. Next week students take the writing and reading portions of AIMS, in April the feared math test. Meanwhile, in K-8, by 2014 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) expects every student to make adequate yearly progress. For most students that means passing AIMS. But are schools given the resources to meet these standards?

Like the past few years, aside from enrollment growth, to meet their basic maintenance and operation expenses school districts will again receive just the 2 percent increase per annum mandated by voter approved Proposition 301 in 2000. Unfortunately, Kyrene, like most districts, faces a 5 percent increase in costs.

Due to a sluggish stock market and low interest rates, the state is mandating school districts raise pension contributions by 2.55 percent. As personnel represents 90 percent of school district expenses, that increases costs 2.3 percent

Teachers face a matching increased deduction from their pay, so in Kyrene teachers are counting on their roughly 2 percent annual experience-based salary adjustment to compensate for it.

Finally, health insurance keeps going up. In Kyrene insurance costs are expected to rise 12 percent next year, increasing their budget obligations by an additional 1 percent. Kyrene is in a fortunate position where their insurance trust fund will likely absorb this cost, but just for next year.

Kyrene’s executive director of student services Christie Winkelman says they are doing everything possible to keep resources going to the classroom. Nineteen administrative and support positions have been left vacant in the last two years, and they are scrambling to figure out how to do without coordinators of transportation and supplemental services. A couple years ago the middle school athletic program was eliminated, too.

Ironically, Kyrene’s families are some of the wealthiest in the state, only 14 percent of students come from homes that qualify for the reduced or free lunch program, for which the highest qualifying income is $35,000 for a family of four. However, for the last 25 years, how wealthy you are hasn’t mattered as Arizona equalizes base school funding. The state legislature augments property taxes on a sliding scale to ensure all districts receive the same amount. That’s good, but unfortunately it turned school finance from the province of local districts to our tightfisted state legislature. In Arizona we take it as gospel that we have always ranked last in funding. Not true. In 1980 we ranked 28^th; by 1990 we had slid to 39^th, and today we’re next to last. Not satisfied, in the name of limiting expenditures through HCR2029 and SCR1020 East Valley Representatives Mark Anderson, Laura Knaperek, Warde Nichols, Russell Pearce, Gary Pierce, and Steve Yarbrough along with Senators Marilyn Jarrett, Karen Johnson, and Thayer Verschoor hope to cast this funding deficit into stone.

Kyrene is one of our best performing districts, but they aren’t making progress against the NCLB 2014 time clock. In writing and reading 85 percent of third graders passed AIMS, but by eighth grade it’s down to 72 percent. In math, it falls from 81 percent to 44 percent. So Kyrene is wrestling with the value of orchestra when you are mandated to improve math scores but not master Mozart. Parents came out last week to emphasize just how important electives like orchestra are to a quality education. They even threatened to pull their kids if need be. Administrators take those threats seriously. The district has a slowly declining student population with about 3,500 children lost to non-district schools though it pulls in another 1,600 through open enrollment. District representatives say each net loss costs the district another $4,000 in funding, but you can’t just fire a teacher because a school has four less kids in fifth grade this year than last, not if you’re concerned about improving test scores.

We do need creative solutions for improving education, but it’s an insult to our teaching professionals to say it’s not also about resources. Just do the math.

Dave Wells of Tempe holds a doctorate in Political Economy and Public Policy and teaches at Arizona State University. Reach him at Dave@MakeDemocracyWork.org.

Presentation by Kyrene School District Officials on Thursday, February 10, 2005

Historical Rankings and information on transition to an equalization formula: The Condition of School Funding in Arizona: 2004 by Richard L. Wiggall Northern Arizona University, see Table 1 on page 2.

School lunch income eligibility is from the federal government with a cut off of 186% of the poverty line or $34, 873 for a family of four. (table can be downloaded) http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/governance/notices/iegs/iegs.htm