Lawmakers attempt to
deceive taxpayers
with 65 percent solution
The “First Class Education” group, with its so-called
“65 percent solution,” is now targeting Missouri for
a ballot initiative in 2006. Gov. Matt Blunt has indicated his support
for the proposal, labeling it “Our Students First.”
The plan would require a minimum of 65 percent of a school district’s
operational expenditures be “in the classroom.”
The proposal reflects a philosophy that public schools don’t
need more funding, but simply need better funding allocation.
“Missouri’s legislative leaders apparently view this
as a helpful electoral diversion from the liabilities of inadequate
state education funding and the ongoing funding lawsuit,”
says Otto Fajen, MNEA legislative director. “More ominous
is the recent revelation that the out-of-state proponents of the
65 percent mandate have ulterior motives: paving the way for passage
of tax credit vouchers and using the 65 percent appeal as a tool
for passage of the less well-received Taxpayer Bill of Rights state
spending limit.”
The group backing the idea has been pushing for adoption in several
states, according to Fajen. Missouri schools spend just over 60
percent of operational budgets “in the classroom” as
defined by this scheme, while the national average is 61 percent.
The definition supporters propose includes teachers’ salaries,
supplies, instructional aides, field trips and athletics while excluding
costs related to administration, building maintenance, food service,
libraries, counselors and transportation. All these student support
costs are explicitly assumed to have no role in promoting student
achievement, according to the sponsors of the mandate.
“This no-classroom-left-behind approach of a one-size-fits-all,
top-down mandate sounds very familiar to anyone working in public
education today after the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind
act,” Fajen says. “This proposal, which does not increase
school funding by a dime, goes in the wrong direction by distracting
attention from the larger problem of overall inadequacy of funding.
Worse, the proposal could actually require districts to arbitrarily
change allocation of funds from vital expenditures that support
learning, such as hiring librarians, counselors and nurses, so that
each district can meet this new state mandate.” |
