Although the meeting was canceled at the Calhoun Academy for the Arts, I went anyway. Since the Anderson Independent printed the announcement, I figured many people would come unaware of the cancelation. Got to speak to about 20 or so constituents.
Also, I’ve been sent a copy of a petition that is being passed around to district 5 teachers, parents, and concerned citizens. The petition calls for the legislature to do several things:
1-suspension in state mandates. I’m all for that, we’ve got to get out of the habit of micromanaging the classroom from Columbia
2-grant flexibility in funding. I’m for that too. I’m not concerned how, just get the money to the classroom. Currently, we only get about 50 cents on the dollar to the classroom. I’d love to see the day when 80 % or more get to the kids.
3-grant flexibility to reduce the number of days after testing. Amen to that too.
4-Rescind Act 388. The petition claims that this change has affected the budget crunch we are in. This particular request is based on inaccurate information. Remember, Act 388 was the property tax reform bill that removed the school operating portion from your home’s property tax bill. We added a penny to the sales tax to compensate (and guaranteed the funding should the penny fall short). Had we never passed 388, we would still have this very same budget problem we face now. We are in a serious recession and the drop in sales tax collections on the other portion of sales tax is the cause of the $300 million shortfall, not Act 388. Also, the petition doesn’t explain that 388 gave you property tax relief. A rescind of 388 would lead to higher property taxes. Sorry, can’t go there.
I’ll add another essential item if we really want to reform school funding…TRANSPARENCY. Here’s some math for you. Anderson 5 spends $8,628 (this figure does NOT include buildings and maintenance) per pupil per year. I’ve asked several teachers this question. You’ve got 20 students; do you see $172,560 per year in your classroom? 30 students: $274,840? I’m sure you know the answer. Teachers, parents, and the taxpayers deserve to see online how their money is being spent, down to the very penny.
Thank you for explaining the petition.
I agree with you on this. Act 388, was a tax shift. The state funding would have still been cut.
The Educrats can’t raise the taxes on our home because of Act 388. This keeps them accountable or atleast it attempts too.
Act 388 did hurt some of us with rental properties. I anticipate it getting worse again next year.
Senator,
With a property tax assessment, responsibility for funding school is assigned. With a sales tax, no one is responsible for fully funding schools because people do not have to shop locally or purchase items subject to the sales tax. The first thing that the General Assembly needs to do is to decide who is actually responsible for funding schools. Responsibility can only be assigned by levying a tax assessment. How the tax assessment is applied can be determined.
You can argue about whether too much or too little is spent on public education. The priority should be to provide a stable situation for children.
Your math problem is that funny new math. Boiling everything down to one number is misleading. If you want to give honest numbers then standardize the school budget reporting format for all school districts so that we can make a valid comparison, budget line item by line item for every district.
Here are the 2008-2009 budget numbers/cost per student that I found on the Anderson District 5 website. {The total cost/student differs from your $8,628 but the break out shows the relative costs for budget line items.)
http://www.anderson5.net/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/3585/File/Finance/fy_09_budget.pdf?sessionid=48aa6fedaeb9b3823dc44101f46ef68b
2008-2009
DISTRICT 5
EXPENDITURES APPROVED
(12,000 STUDENTS) BUDGET/COST PER STUDENT
TEACHERS SALARIES 44,694,144/$3,724.51
FRINGE BENEFITS 16,441,434/$1,370.12
MAINTENANCE/CUSTODIAL 3,784,701/$315.39
PRINCIPALS/ASSTS 3,642,848/$303.57
SCHOOL/ADM SECRETARIAL 2,945,164/$245.43
ADMIN AND OTHER 2,473,108/$206.09
ASSTS/CLERKS 2,244,588/$187.05
BUS DRIVERS SALARIES 1,940,366/$161.70
PURCHASED SERVICES 1,606,361/$133.86
SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS 1,523,836/$126.99
ENERGY - ELECTRIC/WATER 1,339,220/$111.60
WORKERS COMPENSATION 593,449/$49.45
SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS 507,740/$42.31
CONTRACTED SERVICES 411,523/$34.29
PROPERTY INSURANCE 389,849/$32.49
NURSES 327,158/$27.26
ENERGY - NATURAL GAS 319,640/$26.64
TELEPHONE 301,075/$25.09
OTHER OBJECTS 299,767/$24.98
TRANSFER TO SPECIAL REV 287,339/$23.94
SOFTWARE SUPPLIES 243,341/$20.28
TRANSITS 200,000/$16.67
EQUIPMENT 78,041/$6.50
REPAIRS TO EQUIPMENT 73,922/$6.16
RENTALS 71,477/$5.96
LEGAL FEES 63,000/$5.25
PRINTING AND BINDING 57,080/$4.76
TRIPS AND CONFERENCES 51,012/$4.25
GASOLINE 47,290/$3.94
WAREHOUSE 42,504/$3.54
IN-DISTRICT TRAVEL 41,805/$3.48
AUDIT SERVICES 41,800/$3.48
TRUCK SERVICE 37,098/$3.09
DATA PROCESSING 35,990/$3.00
UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE 35,000/$2.92
SUBSTITUTE PROGRAM 32,330/$2.69
OVERTIME SALARIES 27,030/$2.25
DUES AND FEES 26,453/$2.20
TRANSITIONAL MILEAGE 25,276/$2.11
DRIVER’S ED SUPPLIES 12,372/$0.85
TECHNOLOGY EQUIPMENT 9,466/$0.79
SITE IMPROVEMENT 7,604/$0.63
CONTRACTED TRANSPORT 4,872/$0.41
ADVERTISING 4,054/$0.34
INSURANCE & JUDGEMENTS 3,500/$0.29
TOTAL EXPENDITURES 87,355,862/$7,279.66
Professional employees 1,063
Classified employees 696
*Substitute Teachers 269
*Teacher’s Assistants 158
*Buildings and Grounds 144
*Food Service 129
*Transportation 108
*Clerical 106
*Adult Education 20
*Nurses 20
*Computer Technicians 11
Try being a little less simplistic. Try looking at school budgets the way you look @ the Bryant Pharmacy budget.
Jim Kappler
Senator,
Consider that the basis of the English language is the standard 26 letter alphabet. You pretty much have an unlimited “choice” in what your can read or write, and how much you pay.
Consider that HTML is the standard instruction set that instructs you computer on how to display a web page. You pretty much have an unlimited “choice” in what your view on the Internet.
Consider that there are 221,184 to make a Burger King Whopper, depending on how you mix and match the burger parts. If you want a big burger, the standardization of ingredients offers you a degree of choice.
Standardization allows portability and therefore, vastly expands “choice” in the most cost effective manner. Standardization allow for the creation of industries and an industry cannot exist without standards.
We need to quit building boutique, specialty elementary schools (e.g., Arts Academy.) Specialization drives up the cost of education and does not significantly affect the state graduation rate. If art is so beneficial to a student’s education, then apply it equally to all students. For the elementary and middle school grades and core subjects that are subject to state mandated standards and standardized tests, the curriculum and instructional materials should be standardized. One of the things that that standardized testing is telling you is that students are not taught consistently across the state.
Currently, Anderson District 5 sells a curriculum to about 1/3 of the district in the state. (What happened to that $1.5 million?) All students should be taught from the same curriculum and instructional materials so that employers can expect a more consistent output from schools. If you disagree, then scrap out the standards and standardized testing.
Specialization in schools should be focused at the high school level and applied to career planning and job skill set development so that an 18 year old young man or woman can get a job that pays above the prevailing wage upon graduation from high school.
Standardization is what well managed organizations and businesses do. It is the cost effective way to operate and would vastly expand “choice” by allowing portability of education resources.
Jim Kappler
You do have some good points, Mr. Kappler, but let me point out that your approach seems to assume that all children are the same. They are not. There are many different learning styles and capacities, and what works for one will not necessarily work for another. We don’t have cookie-cutter children, and if we approach education as if we did our children will suffer.
Hannah,
I would like to refer you to some of the comments I have posted in AI-M articles on the budget problems in District 5. I mention a school resource funding model that I developed as part of my activities on the statewide planning committee for the SC Dropout Prevention Summit that was held in Columbia in December. The funding model was developed to help school districts obtain funded resources for dropout prevention and other school programs. It would help schools avoid terminating so many teachers. I have spoken with the good Senator about my involvement on the Dropout Summit. Perhaps he can take time to break away from his newspaper interviewing to follow up with me and learn how to develop a more cost effective public school system. You might contact him about this before more teachers get canned.
Having triplet girls, I can indeed attest to the fact that all children are unique. I have also seen them being taught in vastly different ways by different teaches for the same subject.
Some people are theoretical (book learners) & some are strictly hands on (handy men.) They all learn in different ways. But, in the end, only one standardized test is given. Employers need schools to produce graduates that have a consistent level of proficiency in reading, writing, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,and that have a work ethic so that they show up for the job.
Standardization does not mean identical. It means that things are done according to a set of predetermined rules. Specifically, I was referring to the standardization of resources to allow portability and cost effectiveness. In my original examples, standardization allows you to achieve a vast expansion of choice. I am suggesting a system that would better allow you tailor instruction to individual students. It applies mostly to core subjects.
Examples of standardized “textbooks” include the Driver’s Manual that is published by the SCDOT and Boy Scout Handbooks.
We should standardize instructional content to complement our education standards that are some of the highest in America. Instead of a virtual school, we should have first developed virtual instructional content and place all learning materials on the internet. You would then eliminate the need for the SC Dept. of Ed. to budget $50 Million a year for instructional material by not purchase textbooks that get thrown away every few year, in part because of changing standards.
The Internet is as portable as it gets. With content on the Internet, it is now available to privately schooled and home school student, at no cost. Being on the Internet, no money is stripped out from public school. The cost saving is applied to all students and the financial benefit is greater to private schools than few vouchers would offer.
To some extent, you need a cookie cutter approach in order to be effective. That is how the military, corporations, and sports teams work. They operate to Standard Operating Procedure and standardize resources for the purpose of producing a given outcome. Given personal differences, everyone performing the same task is expected to produce a consistent output.
Jim Kappler