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Common Sense: School Funding
What if you had no hope?
Difficult as it may be to believe, there are school districts in Michigan in which 80 percent
of the students drop out before graduation. Those children have lost all faith in education
as a means to improve their lives. Without hope, their future is bleak. They have no hope of
contributing to the overall good of Michigan until their future changes.
View the printable PDF file of this information.
Michigan Farm Bureau's members want to help restore that hope with common sense and civil dialogue.
Following is a quick analysis of Gov. Rick Snyder's plan for education, and comments from Farm Bureau members who are intimately involved in the educational system. The goal is to spur conversation that will lead to a change in Michigan's school system based on common sense, altruism and reform.
The Governor's plan
In order to enable Michigan's education system to produce the return on investment we
deserve, Gov. Snyder proposes to create a performance-based school system that includes:
- A new public school learning model with mandatory schools of choice for every public school district where state funding follows the student.
- A seamless Degrees Matter system that values and demands a post-secondary degree or skilled trades credential for all Michigan residents.
- Assurance that every district utilizes assessments of teaching performance that focuses on teachers' actual skills in teaching.
- Tenure reform
- View the plan at: http://www.michigan.gov/midashboard.
How school boards view the issue
Bill Pridgeon is a Branch County farmer and School board trustee with the Reading
school district. He recommends that school reformers:
- Understand what a local district is up against when making changes to benefit packagesThe union sends attorneys in, and a district ends up paying fees to fight against them.
- Remember that the loss of student enrollment as a result of business/factory closing hurts districts.
- Keep focused on the big picture.School funding has been in trouble for a few years and we were all aware the hole was being plugged with federal dollars. Those have disappeared, but few adjustments have been made.Solutions must be statewide.
The Nuts and Bolts of Proposal A
After 25 years of futility and 12 ballot proposals, in 1994 Michigan voters approved Proposal A, which revamped the way the state funds K-12 education. Voters reduced the state's relatively high property taxes, which had been about 35 percent above the nationalaverage before the reforms and now are about the same as the national average. Proposal A not only gave property tax relief but reduced funding disparities among school districts -- spending had ranged from $3,400 to $10,300 per pupil.
Local property taxes for schools were largely replaced with new state education taxes. Thereforms:
- Increased the state's 4 percent sales tax to 6 percent and earmarked the increase for the School Aid Fund
- Created several new revenue sources for schools, including a 6-mill state educationproperty tax and a 75-cent per pack cigarette tax
- Limited annual property tax increases on each parcel of propert to the lower of (1) the inflation rate or (2) 5 percent
- Stipulated that school districts on the low end of the funding spectrum would receive bigger annual funding increases than would the "richer" schools
- Eliminated a number of categorical (special) grants and rolled the funds into the foundation allowance
How teachers view the issue
Angela Walton is a mathematics teacher at Vicksburg High School, in Vicksburg. Ultimately, she said, changes in education must be determined by student success.
- "The single and simplest idea that has had large success in my classroom is limited class size. Across the board, there was a higher success rate when class sizes were limited to 20 students maximum. Unfortunately, times have changed, and as a result, class sizes have increased already. The Governor's proposed cuts make class sizes increase even more as teaching staff is reduced."
- Anticipated cuts are demoralizing and devastating, especially when there have already been recent trimming of the budget.
- As Proposal A defines, to get more funds coming in to a district, there must be more students. As students (and their families) leave the state due to employment conditions, funding is lost. Until the employment conditions change, school funding will be in jeopardy.
- We need to be careful how we measure success when evaluating teachers, and learn to measure how children learn. Some students aren't good test-takers, while others are adept at regurgitating information, but might not really understand the subject matter.
- Experience in the classroom is still valuable for any school. If teachers are evaluated strictly on student performance on standardized tests, shouldn't we begin putting some responsibility for learning on the students?
COSTS/SAVINGS
K-12 spending is the largest single component of the state budget. In fiscal year 2010, Michigan spent $13.0 billion to support K-12 programs. To the right is a 10-year history of K-12 spending:
In fiscal year 2010, the top three sources of revenue used to fund K-12 education were sales and use taxes (37.8%), federal revenue (18.0%), and property taxes (14.5%). Below is a more complete breakdown of K-12 funding sources:
How does Michigan Farm Bureau policy line up with the Governor's plan?
To ensure that education reform takes a broad view that recognizes that education is just one part of the overall reform platform that Michigan needs, Farm Bureau recommends local school boards consider:
- Teacher contributions to their own health care insurance costs on par with private industry plans.
- Sharing administrative services and personnel between districts.
- Privatizing non-instructional staff.
- Policy number 47, on page 56 of the policy book outlines additional changes to the education system supported by members. Snyder's plan is on the right track with MFB policy in supporting charter schools and schools of choice, local responsibility and altering teacher tenure.
For more information visit: http://www.michfb.com/policy
http://gomasa.org/sites/default/files/HouseFiscalSchoolAid10-11.pdf
Michigan education dashboard
http://www.michigan.gov/midashboard/0,1607,7-256-58084---00.html
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