Spend Smarter

In their Blog entry " Ways we can improve education funding ", my fellow student made some suggestions for ways to help our schools deal with their financial shortfalls. Although some sounded alright at the surface level, most are the types of ideas that I like to play Devil’s Advocate against due to their potential negative impacts.

My colleague begins by touting the Keller ISD “Pay to Ride” plan. In this plan, Families must pay a fee if they wish for their children to ride the bus to school. It is implemented as a cost saving measure but I feel this is the wrong way to go about it.

I will start by reiterating Article 7, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution:

Sec. 1. SUPPORT AND MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEM OF PUBLIC FREE SCHOOLS. A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.

Right now, many African nations provide for the “Free education” of their population. However, the schools themselves have implemented “fees” for various items that are not much by our standards; but they are still sufficient to block millions of their poor from receiving their “Free Education”. Once you open the door to “fees”, where do you draw the line? Do the athletes pay a fee for the bus to take them to football games? Do they charge fees for using the microscopes? For art supplies? None of these are essential for the basic core education but are part of the overall operation of delivering the education. Even if you waive the fees for those that can’t afford them, with the level of Poverty in Texas (We are very high up in the rankings remember), and increasing income gap, this would still impose barriers and develop a two tier system between the “have” and “have not” classes.

Transportation to and from school came about for many reasons, distance from the school was the original barrier that it was developed to overcome. I lived in a small town that was over 15 miles from the nearest school. Second, even for those who might live close to the school, for many the path to school involves having to transverse dangerous roads and, in some cases, divided highways. Third, not all parents’ occupations are compatible with school hours, many start work long before the school opens in the morning or may work long after school gets out. Without access to the bus system, many of these kids would be left to fend for themselves. They would be more exposed to the dangers already outlined as well as subject to the many other social dangers that present themselves on the pathway home, e.g. bullying, gangs and predators. Transportation is an essential element for many families and for many any fee is a burden or barrier, it is relative to your disposable income, not just your actual income.

I will take a minute to agree with the Author regarding the trades programs. Everyone is not college material and there should be some route for those that are not. Now, although I question the dominance and elevated status of football in the school system, in most cases the football programs do at least pay for themselves through ticket sales, booster clubs and sponsorships. In the few cases where it does not, it is an extracurricular activity and not an educational essential so maybe players could pay for their own equipment or get more aggressive with local business to provide it in exchange for advertising.

Now, in the cases of the other programs, e.g. shop, cosmetology etc… again, these are not essential educational programs, and for them to be paid for by public funds is legitimately debatable. But the benefit to the non college bound is hard to dispute. Part of learning a trade is learning the market for the trade so make these programs self-sustaining. When I took Ag and Shop (it was combined), we made things like Salt Licks and Feeders that were sold and we raised animals that were sold. Have days where the students cut hair for a fee and find a product for the shop students to make and sell. Same for other programs. If there is not enough of a market to sustain their program, is there enough of a market for the skill for them to make a living once they graduate? This would teach the students skills, economics, business and not present any barrier for lower income students.

Now, moving on to E-books, once again I must disagree. To use e-books or online texts would require a functional and maintained computer or e-book reader available to every student anytime they needed it. This would be a huge investment to do this for every single classroom and student home. For the internet generation it may be hard to fathom, but as of 2009 only 72.91 percent of the population in Texas has computers and the Internet. " US Census Internet Connectivity by Connection Type and State What do you do for the other 27.09%? Do you pay for their internet, computers, e-readers so they have equal access? As stated in the referenced Video, Irving ISD had to sell 38 million dollars in bonds in order to equip their students with laptops, which means they borrowed the money to do it and are pushing the costs off to a future generation to pay for it. Irving ISD has an enrollment of 34,000 which comes out to $1117 per student. Multiply that by all the School districts in Texas, or 4,674,832 students, and you get a price tag of 5.2 Billion Dollars. That is just one per student and does not count equipping classrooms that might require specialized hardware. Furthermore, it is still a developing technology so this investment would have to be repeated every so many years. Computers don't last 20 years like a good microscope.

Not everyone lives in a good neighborhood and imagine if the criminal element knew that every student was carrying a $500-$1000 laptop in their backpack. Textbooks are a much lower target for theft. I would rather replace a $100 Textbook than a $1000 laptop, and and not all the incidents would be non-violent.

Also, not every textbook is available in electronic format or as “open source”. Publishers typically charge around 50% to 75% of the published price. With E-books you must pay again for each new user (even a “seat” license structure must be renewed). I think you would find the cost to be tenfold over time compared to a published book. And lastly, some people find reading extensive amounts of literature on an electronic device to be quite uncomfortable. I actually dropped a lit course because it was an “E-text” class; it gave me headaches and eye strain trying to read that much literature on a monitor.

Whereas online material will have a place in the future, it will be just another tool in the arsenal where they are proven effective e.g. virtual dissection. I don’t see it replacing textbooks on a wholesale basis anytime soon nor the adoption being a cost saving measure to address the current budget shortfall.

I think a better solution is to limit how often textbooks can be changed and narrow the selection available. Whereas subjects like Social Studies and History must occasionally be updated (or supplements issued), other subjects could go 10-15 years+ with the same textbook. If you can extend the use of a printed book out for many years, the cost becomes minimal. When I went to school, you got one set of books and if you lost it, you paid for it, which is fair. I remember in Jr. High seeing the names of people on the inside cover that had already graduated. A book can be read on the bus, on vacation, in the car, it doesn’t need electricity or batteries and, if they break, they can be fixed with tape. If going completely E-book was economically and logistically feasible it would have already been done by more than one district.

During the last decade Schools enjoyed a nice revenue boost from the increase in property values and now that those values are going back down, they are going to have to set their spending accordingly. In addition to the overall budget cuts, for the first time the legislature failed to finance expected growth. This means that for the next two years schools are going to have to absorb the burden of that growth without state help. Every time you hear about the state bringing in a new business to Austin, remember that all those workers children were not funded for. Now, I don’t agree that should have been done, but now the districts have to deal with the cards they have been dealt.

Like any business facing a slump, schools are going to have to learn to do more with less. Cutting teachers is the easy way out but not the end-all solution. There are many ways to do this without releasing teachers or imposing fees. They can eliminate cars for Administration, limit extracurricular programs, increase class sizes, postpone construction, control equipment/capital purchases and make labs/programs/offices work with what they have for longer. They can implement energy and water conservation programs. They can also draw on community resources by asking for volunteers to provide some functions they now pay outside sources for and by getting more aggressive seeking business sponsorships. School administrators are going to have to get innovative and think creatively.

It’s not a matter of how much you spend per pupil but how you spend it. Although there has been a decrease in state contributions, we still spend about as much or more than several other states with far worse results. I have seen some new schools built that look more like luxury resorts. The town where I went to school finally built a new school a few years ago, it's a metal building. We demand a lot from the pupils, it’s time we demand better of the Administration. " US Census Public Education Finances (Look at Table 8)"