Let's explore the facts…
To do that, we need to inspect the mission of our schools.
Here are some of the goals that our schools are tasked with…
- Transport students both ways in air conditioned busses fitted with seat belts. Not!
- Watch over our children and return them home in one piece in better condition than they arrived (i.e., babysitting)
- Feed our children on schedule, possibly with better food than they can get at home. If that is not possible, at least give them better food than they can get at the fast food places that their families frequent
- Teach children how to pass all the high-stakes tests that "flesh is heir to"
Putting our Schools' Fiscal House in Order
The first step in eliminating this myth is to cut the fat from our school district's budgets.
All superfluous activities and money-wasting expenses, i.e., not focused upon improving test scores, must be eliminated.
These include:
- Art, Music and Drama Classes
- P. E. Classes and Sports
- Sex Education
- Driver's Education
- Technology and Computers
- Labs. Let's concentrate on "book learning"
- Counseling
- In-School Nursing
Rule: "If it ain't [sic] one of the three R's, we don't need it."
Places to cut back…
- Special Education programs
- Dyslexia programs
- Programs for Gifted and Talented Students
The key strategy here, because these groups bleed our schools through court rulings, is to provide a commensurate education. This strategy is easy. Determine how much money there is to spend, and back off on regular education targets so that the regular education targets match the average Special Education goals. In this way, everyone will focus on the same, lowest common denominator, and the budget math equation will be balanced.
As far as the Gifted and Talented students go, they have oodles of ability, and can take care of themselves. Who needs a separate program for them?
Next Step: Back to Basics
Off loading any staff member that isn't directly teaching (to the test) will result in huge financial savings to our school districts.
But, trimming only at the teacher level, without pruning administrative and executive positions leaves an already top-heavy bureau cry with an unstable budgetary center of gravity (i.e., the budget tips and wobbles at the top.
Scaling back the paper shuffling requirements that most of the top level managers, administrators and executives twiddle with can free them up for productive work in the district's classrooms.
Do we Really, Really Need to Pay for These Perks
First of all, health insurance for teachers, even though we provide minimal coverage at high cost to each teacher can be eliminated. And, since we don't need sickly teachers (they prove to be poor role models) we can replace them when they get sick.
Likewise, any teacher that is clumsy enough to be injured on the job and callous enough to file a Workman's Comp claim can be terminated at a school district's earliest convenience.
And, teacher sick days and personal days off create a drain on our school's budgets while providing no productivity benefit. A budget-minded school district should patch these money rat-holes at once.
Belt-Tightening Service Reduction
There is a need to perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine if certain services that the school provides are cost effective.
For example, transportation.
In some states (such as Texas) a school district is only required to provide bus transportation to students if some students are transported. If no students are transported, imagine the savings. So, many school districts should get out of the transportation business. Bus Fleet operation is not a core school district competency anyway, so, let all students (and their parents) fend for themselves.
The key here is a cost-benefit analysis. This analysis will determine if the loss in revenue from lower students' average daily attendance, and the increased legal and litigation costs (of taking parents to court for not ensuring that their children are in school) is smaller than the money saved by eliminating school bus service. If the savings are greater for eliminating bus service, then by all means, ditch the buses. (No pun intended)
Air conditioning and heating.
One belt-tightening solution here is to move to a four-day school week.
The benefit here is that school buildings only have to be heated (or cooled) for four days instead of five.
Provide only cold water from both taps in the rest rooms, or, remove one tap and install automatic shut-off valves instead of faucets. If you remove the hot water faucet, remember to salvage the copper. The price of copper has increased, and it the money earned from the sale of scrap copper may cover the cost of the labor that is required to remove the extra faucets from all district rest rooms.
Many students don't wash their hands with soap and hot water anyway, after using the rest room facilities; so, these procedures will have limited statistical impact in the increased disease and illness that students and staff experience.
As far as saving electricity, remember that all staff must to turn out the lights when they leave their room or workspace. Docking staff member's pay with a small fine for leaving the lights on while out of the room may be legal in some states. Check with the Attorney General of your state before instituting this procedure.
Living within Our Budgets
School finance is simple. Living within the district's means is doable.
This is as easy as listing all expenses in priority order, then drawing a line that reflects real money. Every budget item above the line is funded. Any budget item below the line is discarded.
Of course, standards have to be set so that adequate funds are provided to ensure that each of the items will be funded to a level that guarantees success. The "business as usual" strategy of doling out partial sums and spreading resources too thin has to change.
In fact, this exercise in "fiscal irresponsibility" is the single cause that propagates the "schools don't have enough money," myth.
Public Accountability
The clamor for accountability often targets teachers in its gun sights. But, the correct accountability for our schools is for the public at large that pays for them. The din is raised demanding that teachers do a better job of teaching. What is overlooked is that the public needs to do a better job of looking at its own culpability. Actually, the public receives better schools than they pay for because teachers are driven by idealism and fear of complaints.
The public wants to pay for a no-frills educational flat, but then wants to move into the penthouse.
And, it is the complaint-adverse bureaucracy that props up such a stupid notion, and perpetuates the under funding myth. Why should teachers work without compensation
Not our Business Brothers' Keepers
If addition, our schools mission lacks a funding commitment to provide pre-employment technology training. So, most of the money that is spent on technology can be saved. Once we realize that if employers want our schools to train students in the use of technology, then those employers should fund that training directly, and in proportion to the benefits that they derive.
Schools cannot afford (no pun intended) to carry businesses when those businesses fail to contribute their fair share of the costs.
So what if the community" believes that schools should prepare students for future job markets. Does that same community submit to the tripling or quadrupling of the money that they invest in taxes to pay for this luxury.
If this "community demand" is not matched by money on demand for our schools, then the demand is a veiled, hollow complaint.
High-Roller Budget Panic: Wastrel Tactics of Budget Managers
How many times a year, in how many departments, do budget managers play "high-roller wastrel?"
Everyone knows this tactic by its pseudonym, "spend it or loose it."
This "money wasting extravaganza" happens in school districts in two ways:
- Budget managers approach the end of the budget year with dread. I lf they don't spend all the money that they were allocated, then they will loose the unspent amount for the following year
- A huge sum of money is made available by rolling over funds, for some state or federal program, and hundreds of thousands must be spent within a few weeks
- So, higher ups scramble to purchase "big ticket" items, most of which will never be used
Suggestions for handling this fiscal misfeasance:
- Loose the money! It is better to have a smaller budget the next year than to dump money in the "spend it now or loose it landfill."
- Reward the budget managers who didn't spend the money with a 10% finder's fee
- Send the money back to the state of federal government, or
- Find out what teachers need ahead of time with the secret technique of "asking them"
- Gather teacher purchase requests, and hold them until the state of federal money becomes available
Planning and sound fiscal management are the cures for bureaucratic waste and abuse.
Enlightened management could be rewarded, instead of being punished like it is under the current system.
Call the executive decision-makers bluff. Let the budget amount fall to draconian levels where the department of organization cannot function. Then place a special request for the funds.
The ploy here either will work, or, it will get the budget manager fired. Maybe both.
But, letting a budget fall to unworkable levels will be seen as the "fault" of the highest levels of the school district, and, with luck, might just get the people who really cause budget waste to be fired. These perpetrators (perps) should be prosecuted for the waste and abuse that their unenlightened approach to budgeting and spending creates.
Summary
While these recommendations distort and obscure the boundaries between fantasy and satire, one thing is clear. Our schools need leaders with the courage to confront the "under funding myth" with a clear message.."We deliver the best quality educational product possible, and we do this as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, we are only going to do what we have money to do, and mediocre results from partially funded initiatives are a thing of the past. We are only going to do what we have money to do. If our community has other or more priorities, then prove it by providing the funds. If the community can't cough up the money, then quit complaining. You are getting just what you are paying for."
And, reward the staff members that save real money, and fire the folks who trod the bureaucratic budget road to perdition.
