Funding

State Rep. Glenn Anderson (R-35th) wrote this for his constituents and allowed us to republish as a blog post for our edCored series on education funding. If you want to be notified when new content is published in this month-long series, please subscribe to the LEV Blog’s RSS feed or once-a-day email digest.

At the national level:

After a bruising federal national debt-ceiling debate, a spending cut of less than 1 percent was enacted before Congress voted to lift the nation’s borrowing authority by another $2 trillion. Consequently, the United States credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history. This Labor Day, the national creation of jobs was zero as millions of individuals struggle to make ends meet and invest in their future. Today, Europe is in the middle of a banking system meltdown very similar to the 2008 U.S. banking system meltdown, except instead of the sub-prime mortgage debt, the issue is the sovereign debt of European countries (i.e. Greece, Spain, Italy, etc.). The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank recently began financial bailout loans to European banks (similar to the support they provided to American banks in 2008-09). This is a last ditch effort to prevent the collapse of the European economy upon which the U.S. economy is very dependent.

Our president, before a joint session of Congress, recently proposed a $447 billion temporary “jobs creation stimulus” plan to, again, attempt to kick-start the U.S. economy. This proposal follows the previous $880 billion stimulus plan enacted in 2009, which, by almost all expert assessments, failed to have any impact on improving the nation’s economy. The new “stimulus-light” proposal contains a number of marginal initiatives that would require borrowing even more money from overseas (primarily China). It has been presented that these proposed spending increases will be “paid for” by closing various federal tax loopholes and “taxing the rich” (individuals with an income of $200,000 and above). This is just an outright falsehood. If you eliminated every federal tax loophole and confiscated 100 percent of the profits of every business and the income of “the rich,” it would pay down less than 10 percent of our now $16 trillion national debt.

The only solution to this extraordinary mess is to dramatically cut federal spending and very aggressively create family-wage private-sector jobs. Government can’t create a single permanent private-sector job, but it can create a fair and stable business climate for employers to invest and create those jobs.

At the state level:

Our state’s situation is equally severe. Recently, the state economist forecasted another $1.4 billion reduction in anticipated state tax revenues. This comes just four short months after the 2011-13 state budget passed by the Legislature took effect. Additionally, it was forecasted the state’s economy would not improve for at least the next 18 months and further revenue declines can be expected. Most expert opinion suggests that it will take 6-10 years for the state’s economy to recover to pre-Great Recession levels. The governor has called for a special session to being Nov. 28 to deal with this new budget shortfall, which is not soon enough in my opinion.

This situation comes on top of an overall, already-weak state economy over the past decade. Over the last 10 years:

1) net private sector job creation (actual jobs created less actual jobs destroyed) in our state has been almost ZERO, even with an increase of almost 1 million in new population. The current unemployed/underemployed rate is roughly 17 percent (some estimates place that number closer to 22 percent);
2) the rate of personal income growth (fatter paychecks) is down 20 percent; and,
3) the most basic cost-of-living indicator, food inflation is up almost 40 percent (the number of federal food stamp program participants has tripled). In short, more people in Washington are getting poorer, faster.

What this means is the economically healthier urban counties (King County, in particular) are less and less able to generate the level of tax revenues to redistribute and support the other counties dependent on state funding. Over this last decade as state citizens’ overall have gotten poorer on average, state government spending has increased about 22 percent overall from about $24.5 (2001) billion to $30 billion (2011). This is clearly not a roadmap for future prosperity.

The solution at the state level is no different in principle from the federal level: we must very aggressively encourage the creation of family-wage, private-sector jobs. Without this initiative, our ability to invest in the education of our children, replace worn out infrastructure, transition to a sustainable healthcare system, provide public lands for recreational use and environmental protection and maintain a strong public safety system will continue to erode even more rapidly.

Where do we go from here?

One of my favorite quotes is, “the test of a great people is their ability to renew themselves in the face of adversity.” All of us must understand we are in the beginning of this process. Please do listen to the news closely no matter how depressing it may be or how busy you are. Seek out the facts and ignore the ranting of the ideological extremes. Encourage your community groups to move beyond the “what’s in it for me first” mentality. Challenge your friends and family to become part of the solution.

We will succeed only if we all agree we want to succeed and not just look for ways to blame somebody else for the recent unraveling of the economy. We must act now to ensure our legacy to our children is one to be proud of, not ashamed of, in our time of adversity.

Pat Deming, a music teacher in the Kent School District, wrote this blog post for our edCored series on education funding. If you want to be notified when new content is published in this month-long series, please subscribe to the LEV Blog’s RSS feed or once-a-day email digest.

Forty years ago this September, as a first-year teacher in Kent, I started to teach a choral program at Meeker Junior High. At that time education was more fully funded and arts programs were required by the state. Meeker was able to run a seven-period day that allowed students to meet their requirements as well as enjoy their self-selected electives. Students overfilled the freshly-built choir room for five periods a day. Two exuberant classes of seventh grade girls that numbered 65 and 53 combined to make beautiful two- and three-part harmony. One terrific group of 42 seventh grade boys knocked the socks off audiences with their spirited rendition of pieces from Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. A class of 72 eighth and ninth graders was deemed too large for a beginning teacher so the class was split into two periods that came together for performances. Band classes were full, orchestra classes were full, visual arts classes were full. It was even possible for students to take both band and choir if they chose. Many of those students have become today’s performers, artists and arts teachers. Kent really prepared them for their future.

(Darren Motamedy was one of those band students at Meeker. He was Kent’s Teacher of the Year in 2009 and is a performing artist and composer.)

So why has the choral program at Meeker been driven so low that it has been closed down for the 2011-2012?

In 1983 when the education reforms seminal document Nation at Risk was published, the writers warned of this happening.
“Over-emphasis on technical and occupational skills will leave little time for studying the arts and humanities that so enrich daily life, help maintain civility, and develop a sense of community. Knowledge of the humanities, they maintain, must be harnessed to science and technology if the latter are to remain creative and humane…”

The cancellation of the Meeker Middle School choir program is yet another unintended consequence of school districts trying to comply with No Child Left Behind law. Administrators spend energy and slim resources working to assess students and raise test scores in only two subjects from the education palette . Year after year, parents see reports on tests that state whether students have made grade level and whether a school has made AYP (adequate yearly progress). Students are removed from elective classes in middle school in order to do double time in math, reading or writing. Is it a wonder that social studies, the arts and science are subjects being left behind? Is it a wonder that students, parents and teachers do not value anything beyond math and reading? When was the last time you saw an award or newspaper time given to students for a great performance in singing or playing an instrument? Is it no longer the goal of the schools to prepare students for their future in anything other than math and reading?

Kent’s meager offerings in music and the arts have been rapidly dying out due to lack of a vision and administrative support. Constant cuts in program offerings and not allowing students to take the courses they choose, is about to leave students without an arts program of any kind. This is counter to a large body of research that reminds us that all students do better when they are part of a comprehensive arts program that is supported and nourished. As the sting is taken out of the current federal laws, Kent can be a leader in developing a new vision for students or we must ask the question– What happens when we have no more artists, poets, musicians, social scientists or historians to study? What happens when we have many skilled mathematicians who cannot work creatively or work in community? What happens when we have students writing but cannot express themselves fully?

Judy Rohm, a counselor in the Kent School District, wrote this blog post for our edCored series on education funding. If you want to be notified when new content is published in this month-long series, please subscribe to the LEV Blog’s RSS feed or once-a-day email digest.

I am in my 26th year as a counselor in a Kent School district middle school. For the past three years, and again this year, we are looking at potential cuts to the middle school counseling programs due to budget restraints. The district has cut counseling services in 15 of the 28 elementary schools in the past three years to cut costs.

Many of the families in Kent are experiencing serious financial challenges. In my middle school, 61% of our students are living in families who are below the national poverty level. With the limited family resources, high transiency and added stress due to financial strains, I have seen a tremendous increase in social/emotional/academic and material needs in the past 4-5 years.

The counseling department in our school facilitates a school-wide three-week study skills unit, a three-week career development unit and a 26-week social/emotional/healthy choice program. We also facilitate a WEB program to welcome and mentor 7th graders throughout their 7th grade year. Along with small groups for grief, anger, divorce, self-esteem and drug-related issues, individual counseling and mediations, we are extremely committed to providing as many preventative, as well as responsive, services as possible. With pending budget cuts, these services will be in jeopardy. The needs are great and the services are critical and often life-saving. We appreciate support from the community to maintain and restore critical counseling services to our schools, especially our elementary schools in Kent.

Dee Klem, a parent of two in the Kent School District who runs the district’s elementary Communities in Schools’ program, wrote this blog post for our edCored series on education funding. If you want to be notified when new content is published in this month-long series, please subscribe to the LEV Blog’s RSS feed or once-a-day email digest.

The cuts that have hit education over the past few years have made a bad situation worse at my kids’ home school. This school is a Title I school with a free and reduced rate that was 78 percent two years ago and now is in the high 80’s. We have lost our counselor and half the time of our EA (VP equivalent). These two cuts alone have had tremendous impact on discipline, as one works at the root problems and the other is the disciplinarian in the building. But now on the two to three days a week she is not in the building – who is in charge? The principal? Well, she is often called out of the building by district admin – so then who? The office staff? I have seen many more split classes as a result of the pressure to pack the classes to their absolute max – when do we consider the best interest of the students?

The office staff is another place the cuts are obvious. They cover crossing guard, recess AND the office. This leaves much time in the day with only one person at their desk trying to accomplish their duties but covering so many others. I am not sure how (or even if) they get it all done. Things are cut so far back our principal or EA spends over an hour a day monitoring lunch. Really? Is this how we want these high-paid administrators to spend their day handing out food??

My daughter was fortunate enough to join orchestra as a 5th grader. That option has been cut – students can not start playing an instrument now until 6th grade. Many less are choosing this option for that one year. I do not see this opportunity as an “extra;” many, many studies have been done that illustrate the direct correlation between music and math, not to mention the benefits of arts in education. There has never been a formal art program at our school in the nine years I have had a student there.

Support services at every level in the building have been decimated at a time when they are needed more than ever. These are hard choices that building administrators have been forced to make. Some make better choices than others, but the bottom line is that all are making hurtful cuts as a result of simply not having enough funding.

Things at my school are not getting better; they are getting worse.

Catherine Ushka-Hall is currently the Vice President of the Tacoma School District Board of Directors, having been elected to her first six-year term in 2009. She is a lifelong education advocate, and her two teenagers attend Tacoma Public Schools. She wrote this for our edCored series on education funding. If you want to be notified when new content is published in this month-long series, please subscribe to the LEV Blog’s RSS feed or once-a-day email digest.

As I sat at the dais at the beginning of discussions on budget cuts last year, I placed a note between myself and our board president that reflected the guiding principles we had agreed to over coffee. It had four simple words: “Innovate, Create, Invent, Reinvent.” These words reflect a commitment to not give up on improving the quality of education we provide for our students in spite of the cuts that lay before us. I underestimated the amount of courage it would take to remain true to those principals, and the extent of culture change those words represent from the classroom to Olympia. We must innovate and engage in continuous improvement as the stewards of our fate represented by the kids in each and every classroom in the state.

Silence is not an option.

The public was far from silent when more than 1,500 parents showed up to be counted or testify when the idea of closing a high school was suggested to reduce just $2 million of more than $38 million in cuts. The public was also not silent when we made the painful decision to close two grade schools for a total savings of $1 million. Our teachers were not silent when we sought to pass cuts to them, or alter contract language to allow us the flexibility to place staff where they best fit based on the skills of the teacher and the goals of the school community. Ironically though, the public was completely silent when I clearly stated during public session that the two school closures were likely to be the first, but not the last, as we would begin the 2012 school year with thousands of empty elementary seats, and anticipated the onslaught of further reductions.

I will not be silent now as if there is a possibility of $2 billion in reductions not affecting us, or as if this is not a crisis.

Whether pitting neighbors against each other or education against corrections, “do it to someone else” is not the answer that we need. In our hearts and minds we know this is true. As a board member I am steward of the educational system, however as a citizen, I am also a steward of our whole community. These are not conflicting interests, and we must expect citizens, staff, and our leaders to have the courage to forgo individual politics and personal fears so that false premise is not galvanized as fact. To do so would create a climate where innovation is impossible at a time when it is essential to our success.

You may be wondering what my point is beyond deep-felt frustration. It is this: we cannot allow cuts to levy equalization or all-day kindergarten that would harm those children and districts most at-risk and further drive inequality in our system. We must insist that our legislators make whatever cuts they do on the state level so neighbors are not pitted against one another. We must honor them personally and politically for having the courage to do so. We must temporarily put aside the battle to ensure that the state meets its paramount duty of funding, and we must identify and support the creation of new revenue streams that allow for stability in education and all of the government services that we rely on. If that means overturning the requirement of a 60 percent supermajority, or insisting that the supermajority define itself, then so be it. If that means the creation of a state income tax, or the removal of some loophole, then so be it. If that means that we ensure Washington works with Washington to untie our hands from the limitations of No Child Left Behnd so that we can work without fear of condemnation, then so be it. I am not claiming that these are the answers; however, I am insisting that we find the answers together and move forward with clear intent to find and implement innovations that empower us to provide excellence in our new economy.

As we begin our board review of further anticipated shortfalls, I will add a fifth word to my notepad to ensure I do not lose sight: courage.

I challenge myself and my peers to define it in their words and actions. In the end, it truly is all about the kids. I will strive to be able to tell my grandchildren (not a hint to my teenagers, by the way) how people from otherwise opposing sides came together to recreate a system so that they and every student of their generation is empowered with the greatest tool we can provide: a quality education. As we move through the sometimes ugly process of democracy, I urge the citizens and leaders of our great state to create this story with me. I cannot promise we will be successful. I can promise that it will be a story worth telling.