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Related Educational Issues |
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Op-Ed Articles on the Governor's School District
Consolidation Proposal:
January 18,
2007 - Bangor Daily News School administrative restructuring appears to be the governor’s second-term education keystone. Legislation is in the making to create 26 megadistricts. The goal? To curtail Maine’s purported profligate spending on administration. The facts, however, are not on the administration’s side. Gov. Baldacci claimed in his inaugural that Maine has "excess administration" in schools. The central evidence to support this claim, echoed from three fall 2006 reports, is that Maine’s numbers of school administrators and expenditures on administration are above the national average. The administration’s initiative, known as Local Schools, Regional Support, seeks to cut school district administration, promising to save $250 million over three years. So, what are the facts? First, Maine does have more administrators per student than the national average, not unlike many other rural states. Our population is widespread. We have many small towns. We have many small schools and school districts. But do we spend more on administration? The results are mixed. From 1999 to 2003, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Maine averaged $65 per pupil more for administration than was the national average — about 10 percent higher. But in 2003-04, Maine’s per-pupil expenditures on administration were actually $16 less than the national average. And do we spend more per student than the national average? Commissioner Gendron cites a single year (2004-05) when Maine was almost $2,000 above. But U.S. Department of Education data show that Maine’s average current expenditure totals between 1999 and 2004 were $1,087 above the national average. Yes, we do spend more and we have the distinction of placing second in the nation in the percent of our expenditures that go directly to "instruction and instruction-related activities." Clearly, focusing on administrative costs does not tell the whole story. Schools and districts employ staff beyond principals and superintendents to support teachers and students — including curriculum coordinators, special education administrators and specialists, guidance counselors, department and team leaders, technology coordinators, business managers, and clerical support. They are reported in annual expenditures in several categories, along with administration, under the heading "Student Support Services." The administration and the authors of last fall’s reports apparently paid little attention to these other staff and service costs. Maine consistently spends less in these other staffing areas than does the nation — $290 per student less on average between 1999 and 2003! Put another way, staff support for students and teachers in Maine schools is provided primarily by administrators, with substantially less specialized and auxiliary assistance than is present in many other states’ school districts. The picture emerging from these facts is one of considerable administrative efficiency: We pay $65 more for administration but $290 less for other staffing and our product is better, as measured by National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores, than most every other state’s. In 2003-04, Maine’s percent of expenditures devoted to administration was actually the fourth lowest in the United States! Many would argue that we should be comparing our expenditures not only with the nation but with our neighbors in New England and New York who share our higher costs of living and doing business. After all, we can’t make ourselves into New Mexico or Arkansas, even if we wanted to. A comparison with these seven other states in 2003-04 (the latest year available at NCES) reveals that Maine’s expenditures for administration lag consistently behind all but New Hampshire. Not only were Maine administrative expenditures 14 percent below those of our neighbors, but our total school expenditures trailed our neighbors by 11 percent. Nowhere in the administration’s proposal or in the three fall reports is there a thorough and well-documented assessment of efficiencies and inefficiencies in school administrative practices. The LSRS proposal sounds promising in its emphasis on building up instructional supports, but it does not demonstrate specifically where the efficiencies and inefficiencies are in the current system. Hence, it cannot explain how the new system is going to be better — that is, how it will be both higher in quality and lower in cost. My data (and my experience with many school systems) indicate that we already have a lean system. In fact, it’s a system that assigns so many tasks and responsibilities to administrators with so little support that principal and superintendent jobs are unattractive to our most talented educator pool. This is not simply an administrative problem, it’s an urgent leadership problem. How will razing the current district system and replacing it with 26 mega-districts help? To a lot of principals, it will mean they’ll get even less support and assistance. To many parents, teachers and citizens it will mean yet greater distances between them and those who make policies and prescriptions for them. And to a lot of school boards who have scrutinized expenditures for many years, it will mean the repudiation of local accountability. Clearly, the governor’s intentions are noble. But the premise on which he proposes these changes is flawed. Our current investment in "student support services" is below the nation’s and our neighbors’. Our goal ought to be to provide talented, hard-working support staff and services — both administrative and educational — in an affordable manner to every teacher and parent in Maine. Repackaging an already lean system of administration and support staffing for our schools is not only unlikely to save a lot, it’s likely to do damage by removing current support systems and undercutting local citizen participation in and oversight over these important functions.
Gordon Donaldson is professor of education at the
University
of Maine. His report, "Pursuing Administrative Efficiencies for Maine
Schools," can be downloaded from http://portfolio.umaine.edu/~edl. -------
State rules require every school administrative unit, or SAU, to have a superintendent and to assign students to their town-operated public school. State rules set forth a host of regulations that require administrative oversight. So long as state rules do these things, there is little chance that changing the number of SAUs will reduce administrative costs per pupil. Other states have tried to consolidate districts to reduce costs. They have not succeeded. See the experience of West Virginia, Wisconsin and Arkansas, for example (Rural School and Community Trust, "The Fiscal Impacts of School Consolidation," www.ruraledu.org). Why does this seemingly logical reform not work? Because bureaucracies are skillful at creating new positions. How many new assistant superintendents will each new district have within 5 years? Bureaucracies find ways around mandates. Who would decide how such costs would be measured over time? What would be the consequences to a mega-district for not reducing per pupil administrative costs? A fine imposed years down the road would have little effect on operations now. A major reason school administrative expenses are high is the state rules that now govern SAUs. So, cost-saving reform should start by reviewing and changing those rules. Allow towns and districts freedom to reorganize in ways that they can see will save money. School boards and superintendents have few incentives to keep administrative costs low. State and local education dollars are levied and allocated based on positions and functions, not on cost per child. It is difficult for towns to reject the annual increases in school budgets requested by school boards. Over the past two decades in Maine, the average annual increase in public school budgets has been about double the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index. How could the state provide incentives for districts to reduce administrative costs? We should provide families with options among public education programs, and fund schools based on the number of students they serve. Funds would follow each child according to a "weighted student funding" formula. When families have choices, schools and districts have a strong incentive to keep administrative costs under control. A school that spends too much of its budget on administration risks lowering the quality of its academic program, and, therefore, losing students, and hence, funds. Having to recruit and retain students encourages schools to find cost-effective ways to meet student needs. Dissatisfied parents can move their child and find another public education option, with funds following the child to that program. This places local control at the school level, the best place for decisions to be made on behalf of the children entrusted to that school. Principals should have substantial budgetary autonomy so that each school has great flexibility in using its resources to meet its students’ needs. "Weighted student funding" allows towns and the state to take into account the needs of each student in allocating funds. This approach would provide new ways to address issues of funding equity around the state, while encouraging districts and programs to spend as much as possible on student learning. Quality of programs would be judged both by external standards (state exams, SAT scores, NAEP scores) and by parents’ choices. To encourage improvements in education quality, two quality control mechanisms are better than one. Pioneered in Edmonton, Canada, jurisdictions that have weighted student funds follow each child to the public school of choice include San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati and Hawaii. For more information, see www.edexcellence.net/fundthechild/proposal/. To get a handle on Maine’s high administrative expenses, let’s start by removing state regulatory requirements that increase administrative costs. Then let’s phase in an incentive approach that gives families freedom to choose among public education programs with funds following each child. (Special allocations can be added for rural locations and other factors deemed important.) In a few short years, districts and schools will have found myriad ways to increase learning and reduce administrative costs, without the destructive political battles that will take place if existing local control mechanisms are forcibly reduced, and families are faced with even fewer education options than they have now.
Judith Jones of Hope is a sociologist and education planner. ----------
Gov. John Baldacci has proposed education reform entitled "Local Schools, Regional Support" or LSRS. If adopted, LSRS would wrest control of our school systems from towns and place that control in regional administrations. The repeated misrepresentations surrounding the governor’s proposal are unacceptable. I have supported Gov. Baldacci in many of his proposals. LSRS is not one of them. The most glaring example of the misrepresentations pervading the governor’s proposal for education reform is the name itself: "Local Schools, Regional Support." In fact, the proposed legislation is designed to take away local schools — take away the physical plant and take away control over how education is imparted within the school. Perhaps it is best to explain by listing the ways in which the proposed legislation would take away local control of our schools:
Maine is a state that traditionally defers to local control. The tradition of local control pervades our perspective. It is one of the attributes that makes Maine more than "Vacationland." The report of the Brookings Institution indicates that Maine should have a more efficient school system. We should take that advice seriously and implement it in a way that makes sense. LSRS does not make sense. To suggest that creating 26 remote administrative bureaucracies is an antidote to "Administrationland" is to stand logic on its head. There are alternative proposals for education reform being presented to the Legislature that do not so thoroughly rob the state of its tradition of local governance. Those alternatives must be given full weight and consideration in open debate. Performance of the public schools in Maine is not at issue. Maine has many excellent schools, and on a whole the schools in Maine perform above the national average. The problem lies in the financial burden that our public schools place on the state and its citizens. That financial burden needs to be addressed. But before we put our public schools in jeopardy in favor of financial efficiency, we need to have a clear and very detailed accounting of anticipated costs and savings resulting from the change. If we must give up local control in order to make the system work financially, we should do so in a thoughtful manner. The governor’s push to pass LSRS does not allow the citizens, the media and the legislators of this state the opportunity for thoughtful debate about this weighty decision. The misleading rhetoric, frantic fact finding, and resulting misunderstandings surrounding the current debate bodes poorly for a positive outcome. Many small-town communities revolve around establishing and implementing school systems and educational policies. To take away that local control is yet another blow against local community, local governance, local control.
Margaret T. Jeffery of
Bar Harbor is
an attorney and a member of the Bar Harbor School Board.
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To contact MACS: macs@mainecharterschools.org |