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)"

Tossing out the baby with the bathwater

Throughout this course we have covered most of the elements of Texas government and rather than just a “This is how it is” type class, the course material addressed not only the history but also many of the problems with our current system. Through the discussions boards and blog entries there were many opinions on how to fix this and that, but one thing that was not brought up much was just doing away with the entire mess and starting over.

One fact that is undeniable is that Texas is very quickly growing and modernizing as a state, but we are still using an 1800’s model of government. We have a part time legislature that meets ever 2 years and “guesses” how much the state might have the next two years and doles out the money. And when they miss the mark, it is the next legislature that has to try and fix it. During those two years the economy can go through massive swings, technology changes. I don’t handle nearly as much money but I am continually reworking my personal budget as things come up and there is no way I could guess what the future would hold for me 2 years from now.

Power is spread across so many different authorities, and even overlaps in many cases, to the point that it is not always really clear as to who does what. The complexity makes it hard for the average citizen to really participate and isn’t that the point of a government by the people? In the 1800’s it was much harder to participate so more delegation and regionalization made sense but now the participation is hindered by that same process that was needed to ensure participation back then. I can now cross the state in a day whereas the same trip once took weeks, and with modern technology quite often the trip isn’t needed as most business can now be done via voice or data that didn’t exist then.

Sometimes when you have a really old car, you reach a point where it doesn’t make sense to fix it anymore and you just need to get a newer model. With the Texas economy now being larger than that of most countries, I propose that we might just be at that moment.

The problems in the state, the poverty, lack of insurance, rich/poor divide, environmental problems, energy issues, road construction, education problems… they require a full time government to deal with them. As a Texan, I would love to be proud of how we do things but when it comes to our government I’m afraid that just isn’t possible. I think our Texas pride should allow us to collectively agree that we need to be the best even if it means changing our ways.

To start, we need a legislature that meets on a very regular basis. There were a massive number of bills and issues that were not addressed last session simply because there was not enough time to get around to them, and it will be 2 more years before most have a chance to come up again. We need to shift the budgeting incrementally to the point to where they are spending the money after we make it, based on the prior year’s revenues instead of future projections. We need to study areas of the country where the citizen participation is the highest, find out why and mirror their processes.

We need to draw in neutral experts in every field, from government to criminal corrections, energy, education, road construction and actually listen to them, even if what they say does not mirror our religious or political philosophies. Everyone likes to armchair quarterback, but this is a game that affects lives.

As a Texan, I have no doubt that we could find ways to maintain a healthy business environment while still helping our poor, educating our children and protecting our environment. But we won’t do it working part-time with closed minds spending money we don’t have yet and most likely won’t.