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There is an active dialogue going on regarding teachers/education, off-topic on another thread. Thought I'd start a topic on this general subject area, although I do have a specific concern (but comments off-topic are fine with me).

Our school district (district has around 18,000 students, suburb of Portland) is now at the point where the Budget Committee will make final recommendations to the School Board in May, for their approval and any changes they may wish to make.

So. . . any ideas from around the country where cuts in a typical school district could be made? Or, any creative ideas where sources of revenue could be acquired? Have you noticed any cuts made in your region's school districts?

School budgets are of course complicated by the never ending state and federal mandates. If not for the continuous and increasing role of government, the budget process would certainly be easier to deal with, as would the actual teaching which takes place in the classroom. Oh well, that's not news.

I hate to see programs cut. Music and PE were cut in 1992 at the elementary level, partially reinstated a couple of years ago. This will not happen again - over my dead body will I let them cut music!

Any ideas on how to save some $ would be appreciated. Ideas floating around now are: cutting teacher's pay (contract item of course), cutting school days, cutting all extra-curricular activities (includes all sports as well as choir, band concerts, etc.), not purchasing textbooks, eliminating media specialists (librarians in the old days), eliminating field trips, offer early-out retirement and replace with new (bottom of pay scale) faculty, increase class sizes, close smaller elementary schools.

Bottom line: the district must cut 5.7 million from next year's budget.

rvaga,

We are currently fighting some of the same battles, although our shortfall is not quite as large as yours.

We lost most of the sixth grade music programs, except at the magnet school.

In order to keep the band programs intact, (but still with lowered funding), it looks like all sports except football, basketball, baseball and track are gone.

If the government would just quit with the unfunded mandates, teaching our children would be much easier economically.

I've said before, the Catholic Church (and other religious, and secular private schools), does a much better job, for less than half the money per pupil.

You think the government would learn.

Hi, rvaga:

You have a tough issue-- as do most of us. I am in total agreement with Jolly's comment, by the way.

In my experience, cutting sports (NOT PE, but after school team sports) is extremely unpopular but perhaps the way to go. Here's why: for a fraction of the cost, the school can subsidize an existing program (like the Y, for example) to manage the after school sports on a "pay and play" thing. Parents of sports-active students of course will kick and scream, but ultimately if they want their kids to do sports, they will pay. (Let's face it, they're already paying, as any parent with a sports-oriented kid knows!).

I understand truly that there are wonderful benefits to kids participating in sports... health, social, learning teamwork and "life lessons," etc. But we are making tough choices, and the point is that there are other means to providing your child with that experience.

It's not so clear to me that there are as many options to providing your child with extra-curricular general PE, beginning band or orchestra, etc.

Hard question, no easy answers!

Nina

I, have a personal interest in schools, having a 9+6 year old. I find no hope in the government run schools. I send my kids to a private Catholic school that I take personal interest in.

We have regular teachers but, I teach creative writing, a doctor teaches biology, a local newscaster teaches media, a physicist teaches physical science, etc.

We pay the school $20,000 a year and we all volunteer. The teachers make $50+ as year and are the best.

I give my kids the education I want them to have. If you want something for free--you get what you pay for.

Last time I checked, we were all paying for the "free" schools... and a fair amount, at that!

I am a big fan of public schools in principle. I think quality education should be a basic right of any child in the US. Not a right only for those parents with the financial means to obtain it.

I am disgusted with the way we have chosen to balance budgets by cutting education, particularly in my state. (We're #50!) I think the public school system requires a major overhaul. In my local experience, that overhaul is not likely to come... too much politics, ego, and financial pressure.

I talk a good game, but when it comes to my own kids, I will be the first to admit that I would send them to a private school, and pay the $$, if it were the only reasonable alternative. Here in Arizona we have charter schools, which vary greatly in quality. I've done considerable homework and am relatively pleased with the charter school my kids are in. I'm also keeping my kids education savings accounts fully stocked in case I have to raid them to pay private school tuition.

What's the saying, think globally, act locally?

Nina

Nina,

Yes, something that must be considered: cutting after-school sports would save 1.5 million.

Portland school district did that a couple of months ago. I think it was certainly in part a political move though, as it caused an uproar within the school district. I don't think there is more of a hot buzz issue than sports. Cut history classes, no problem. Cut football/basketball, parents will go nuts! The uproar in Portland caused the city council to begin work on helping the district with a business license increase and other fees assessed only on businesses. Although the legality of this move was questioned (this goes against the "equal and fair funding per student" in this state), the city council knew darn well that the legislature would not get in the way, as Portland schools were already cutting almost a month off of the school year!

I lived in Tucson. After I left the school system went to pieces (#50? I thought we had that honor in Oregon...)

I lived in California. After I left, the schools went feet-up financially.

I live in Oregon. Schools (and the state of course), broke, busted, in the red.

hmmmmm. I'm sensing a pattern here! :rolleyes:

My vote for cuts is in the area of technology. We need to SLASH technology budgets from schools bigtime.

The idea of a computer and internet in every classroom is a waste. Computers are unnecessary for many basic educational needs - language, mathematics, social sciences, geography, etc...

Many schools use computers when they don't need to, and many computers in school classrooms go unused.

The next thing we need to cut down on is testing. Standardized testing (and testing, and testing, and testing) is expensive and takes away from instructional time. Given that the usefulness of constant assessment is in doubt, we need to scrap some of it.

I think public education is one of the cornerstones on which contemporary American society is built, yet many Americans routinely vote NO on bond issues and sales taxes because they don't have faith in the system or don't like handing over control of their money to a government agency. I think the remedy lies on both sides - Americans need to exercise more generosity with their checkbooks and more intelligence at the voting booth, and the government badly needs to build trust in the public education system.

This scenario for example happened at least twice in 5 years in my home town:

1) People complain about horrible public school facilities.

2) The city proposes a 2-year quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund facility repair and construction.

3) People vote no!

There is no one solution, people need to help out on all fronts. People need to shut up about "MY money" and pay their damn taxes. The government needs to realize that if it doesn't spend tax dollars wisely, people won't exactly have a warm fuzzy feeling about investing in public education. The school administrators need to stop making excuses and stop whining about money and get the job done anyway, and teachers need to - well, the good ones need to be rewarded and the bad ones need to be shot. Five or six times. And parents...well, parents need to HELP their kids learn. They need to read to their kids, talk to their kids, play music for/with their kids, and stop signing their kids up for hundreds of activities (including music lessons!) and take an ACTIVE role in their kids' education.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my best students have always been the ones whose parents took the time to sit in on their lessons, walk with them into the studio, and had the foresight to not overschedule their kids or themselves to the point where lessons were just another pit stop on the road of life and not, as they should be, an integral part of the journey.

Parents will say that their kids "just won't listen" or that they "have no attention span." Funny thing is, I've usually already reached that same assessment of the parent. Some parents develop their kids' ability to listen and pay attention. It can be done!

I even had a parent tell me that her daughter just HAD to do gymnastics, piano, skating, school, swimming, and church youth group because she wanted her to be well-rounded and have a good childhood. Nevermind the fact that this girl routinely came to lessons (and all her other activities) poorly prepared, with only 5-6 hours of sleep, and acting either fussy or like a zombie.

Okay...I need to shut up now. Stupid parents just tick me off!

What percentage of a state's budget should be spent on education?

I am a building guy, so my ideas are mostly facilities-related. Some of these ideas have already been put in to practice by our local district.

Some are never going to happen, as the unions fight everything tooth and nail. In our district however, they seem to be getting around some of the union objections.

1. Eliminate the prevailing-wage provision from all school related construction/maintenance contracts. The amount of $ schools have to pay for common construction/maintenance tasks is unbelievable.

2. Eliminate the state architect's office as the sole source of approvals and designs for school facitilites. Their sole purpose appears to be making school projects cost as much as possible, and the quality of the buildings they have been turning out lately is a disgrace.

3. Design school facilities to be as flexible as possible, using materials and techniques that are the standard for the building industry. The special finishes and fixtures they use in these monuments are a huge waste of money and virtually guarantee obsolescence in 30 years' time. Something as dynamic as a school building is no place to mess around with things like custom concrete block interior walls.

4. Put the darned lockers back. I know they removed them in an effort to keep kids from storing contraband in them (noble enough, if misguided), but the cost of supplying each kid with TWO textbooks for each class (one for school and one for home $50 - $75 per book)is too high a price to pay. Put the lockers back and search 'em from time to time. If they get trashed, let the metal shop fix them - they might as well make something useful. If the teachers balk at spending time searching lockers, let a parent group do it; or the Explorer Scouts.

5. Schools have a built in supply of free labor. Use it! Not just the students either; use the parents!

I can see no reason to pay anyone to clean up papers on a sports field. 500 kids picking up one piece of paper a day will guarantee a clean schoolyard at $0 cost. 500 kids pulling one weed a day can probably cover even the largest schoolyard in a week or two. My own elementary school did this when I was a lad. The teachers groused, but it was very effective.

Our High School sports teams work this system like a pump. Each team has a field day once per year, and there were probably 200 parents and an equal number of kids at the last one I attended for baseball. I have rebuilt barbecues, overhauled pitching machines, repaired lighting and welded up countless pieces of field gear. I enjoy it - everyone seems to - and the combined value of everything the parents do in one weekend of field work has to exceed $50,000. Multiply this by the number of sports teams there are at that school, and you have a substantial
savings.

6. Form a committee or appoint a PTA person to do nothing but work over local contractors/businesses for donations of time, expertise and material. It is a grand old tradition, and I don't mind it. I deduct it, I have the kids help me and the work gets done. Our local schools thrive on donations of everything from pencils to carpet. The private schools have raised this one to an art form.

7. Charge the outside groups that use the facilities. It does not have to be in cash, although cash is always a good fall-back.

One local soccer league has a deal with the school district to do all of the maintenance on the sprinkler systems at all of the schools, in exchange for the use of those fields weekends and evenings. There is a retired engineer who handles most of the work - he seems to enjoy it. He presses other league parents and kids in to service as required. If the league decides they do not want to do this, there are several other leagues who would jump at the chance to use the fields under the same arrangement.

Local groups using the auditorium after hours? Great - they can tune the piano. Better yet, they can replace the piano! Basketball leagues using the courts? Terrific - they can pay to stripe them. Softball teams want the fields? Excellent! - the fences need mending. The list is endless. These facilities are worth a fortune - make them pay. Auction time in them off to the highest bidder.

8. Use the classrooms to create useful things for the district. If the district is not using the auto shop to service district vehicles, they should be. Home Econ students can work in the cafeteria, shop kids can make things and fix things. Biology classes can propagate common landscape plants to use on school grounds.

9. Use local volunteers as much as possible, and don't wait for them to come to you - ask! Our public elementary school has so many volunteer teacher's assistants that there is at least one in every class every day of the year, and there is a waiting list. They don't just grade papers, either. They are assigned to classrooms according to their skills, and the elementary school computer room is the envy of the system.

Think any of this makes sense for your district?

In New Jersey the Arts have been severly cut throughout the state,by the State.The district I work in gave pink-slips to 590 employees last week,ranging from administrators to custodians.I have 15 years in,so I was'nt on the list,but was in 1990 and 1996.I don't think it is any better in the private schools,I know a few teachers who are also being laid-off. :rolleyes:

If school districts ran the schools like a corporation they might make better use of their money. For example, San Diego Unified gives each school a budget and expects them to do their own purchasing. It seems that the thought of negotiating a contract for copy machines for ALL schools didn't cross their mind, so each school does it's own thing and pays the price. Same with books, they instruct each school to build classroom libraries but leaves the individual purchase up to the school/classroom. There is no negotiated price for operating suystems, Virus software or educational software, and the computers themselves are all over the map. The networks were put together by parents and there are no centralised servers. Frankly the infrastructure is a shambles.

I agree that the computers are mostly unnecessary, however there are some kids in the school bussed in from the lower income parts of town and I am sure this is the only place that they learn how to use a computer. So I am in favour of keeping them.

Public school is not free, just as a police force and fire department is not free. You pay for it and should demand the best.

A couple of years ago, the people in LA voted "Yes". LA Unified is not my school district, but I followed the campaign with interest as my sister-in-law was teaching in LA at the time. Prop BB they called it, and although I do not have the numbers at hand, it was a HUGE amount of money - even for a district the size of LA. They were suposed to use it to fix up the school buildings, air condition most of the older schools and build a couple of new ones.

What did the good citizens of LA get for their money?

First they got the Belmont Learning Center; the single most expensive school ever proposed. The cost of this thing was unreal right from the start, and the cost overruns in the first year almost doubled that. They got it all graded and framed out and THEN they discovered it was built on an old oil field - contaminated from heck to breakfast.

They spent a half a mil to board it all up and there it sits. It will continue to sit, probably forever. Too expensive to tear down, not possible to finish. Millions wasted, and additional millions wil be required to maintain it, tear it down or try to do anything else with it. One has to wonder why they did not check for contamination before they started, but no one wants to talk about that and no one has lost their job over it.

Fix up schools. Good idea. District office originally announced that they could do only about half of the repairs that they originally thought they could do, and that it would take 20 years. A private firm (Pacific Lighting and Leasing - they have a good track record with this sort of thing) announced that they could do ALL of the repairs and then some with the same money, and get it all done in three. District office came back and said that they had refigured and were sure they could do it for the same money and time frame.

And so they did - sort of.

Chaos. Mishandled asbestos closed some of the schools, many of the jobs were never finished. Some of the air conditioning systems are so bad that they can not be used - why is this so hard? Cost overruns were legendary and the whole project was one screw-up after another.

I don't remember all of the stories, and my sister-in-law left to teach in another district. I do remember reading an article where they talked about the fact that the District Super of Facilities has no real estate or construction experience, aside form tiling his shower a few years prior. He used to he a History teacher.

Bottom line? Most of the good people of LA have vowed that LA Unified will never get another DIME of their money. The new Super of schools is an ex-businessman and seems to be giving it a good shot, but unless he is free to actlike Chainsaw Al, his job is hopeless.

The other time we voted money for the schools is when the Lottery came to town. "To Benefit the Schools! - Lots of money for the schools!" The Lottery measure passed and there should now be LOTS of money for shcools as the lottery takes in plenty of dough.

It never quite worked out.

Seems as though as soon as the legislature saw that the schools were getting some money from the lottery, the removed a like amount from the money they had been budgeting for schools in the past. Heaven only knows what they did with it. The schools ended up even poorer than before, and now California ranks somwhere in the low 40's as far as $ per pupil.

I just read that the schools will be asking for more money on the ballot in '04. I wonder what they intend to do with it?

The district my children are in is always looking for ways to raise additional revenue.

Currently there is a lot of pressure on the state legislature to increase the levy limits.

All afterschool High School sports programs have a fee associated, something like $200 a sport.

The district has a schools foundation which raises money through a phone a thon each year. The foundation pays for most extras in the district. They buy new text books, computers, science apparatus. The individual schools apply for funds through grant requests.

And our individual PTA's raise quite a bit of money, parents are told point blank at the start of the year what amount the PTA needs to raise per student. Some give nothing, and some contribute much more. Our elementary school decided that extra Parapros in the classes would help reduce effective class sizes. The PTA came up with the funds to hire 4 additional staff for the year. They are hoping to fund 6 parapros next year.

The majority of the parents here will fund anything the schools ask for. What we are not allowed to do, is pay the teachers more even though we live in a high cost of living area. This has been a big issue in trying to attract and retain the best teachers.

This is not a perfect solution, but it helps.

How about putting some of those administrators back in the classroom part-time. Can any of them teach art or music, or fill in for another teacher who could? Administrators are plentiful, are experienced teachers, & make way more $$ than regular teachers. Plus, being back in the classroom would give them a better feel for the real needs of the students and teachers.

A big THANK YOU to all for contributing some unique solutions!! I have copied many of the ideas, will rephrase them to be in context with our district's set-up, and see if I can move the mountain a bit (so to speak).

In the past, I have found the administrators to be reluctant to pursue any avenue of alternative funding, as they would much rather have the State pay the costs. I don't blame them at all, but times are tough and some creativity could save a chunk here, a bit there.

Steve Miller stated, "The special finishes and fixtures they use in these monuments are a huge waste of money and virtually guarantee obsolescence in 30 years' time. Something as dynamic as a school building is no place to mess around with things like custom concrete block interior walls."

Interesting. We just had an auditorium (separate building) completed last year at a high school, and the interior is exactly what Steve finds questionable: custom concrete block interior walls! Steve, what's wrong with this type of construction?

Although I've been an active, annoying parent for several years in our district, I am now one of 7 people on the budget committee that will determine where the cuts will have to be made (our report will go directly to the Board for final approval). I very much appreciate the help you guys have given. Lots of ideas worth discussing, savings which can be made without cutting programs or increasing class sizes too much.

"Mom of 3" mentions a foundation. Yes, our district has one, I'll look into their bylaws. And, just so happens we will be cutting $500,000 of textbooks (math) that were to be purchased for next year (BTW - state mandates new textbooks every 7 years, we must receive a state waiver to postpone the purchase). Anyway, the possibility that the foundation could raise funds for textbooks is super! These types of ideas have merit, as I can present these as solutions I have heard of being practiced in other parts of the country, not just my ideas for others to yawn over.

I understand that Nike has a matching donations program where they pay up to $5,000 to any school that signs up and meets certain criteria (or so I was told yesterday by a friend). She accompanies the choir, is paid $10 per hour, submits her hours worked to Nike, they pay the district whatever she was paid. I would like to get major corporations to be more involved with funding (Nike is a big one here in the Portland area), but of course that's very difficult as the State has made it almost impossible for businesses to give directly to a school district.

The legislature here in Oregon has worked diligently over the past decade to eliminate inequities, with the situation now that all districts are now forced to make drastic cuts. There would be many options or possibilities, if the State would get the heck out of the way. So often in response to a question, the answer begins with, "The State mandates XYZ, we have no choice . . . "

Kriesler stated: Are you running for any public office? Let me know and I'll try to vote for you twice!

Computers were the panacea that was going to change education as we knew it. They did just that - they made it worse.

The most successful math teacher (success as measured by ACT scores) in our school district does not allow anything more than a basic calculator (very basic) in even his advanced math classes.

Our teachers have become so caught up in the siren wail of alternative teaching methods, audio-visual learning tools, Power Point presentations, and computer assisted learning, that many have forgotten how to teach the old fashioned way.

And on another note:

Steve Miller's post should be printed and hung in any Superintendent of Schools' office.

It's that good.

I don't claim to be any kind of "school reformer", so my two cents are as worthless as that of anyone else: :p

I'd start by rejecting all requirements of "No Child Left Behind" and the other "neo-Stalinist" requirements of the Bush Administration's federal takeover of public education, beginning with standardized testing.

In Vermont, they have figured out that if they reject NCLB, they will lose $55 million in federal aid, but it will cost them $150 million-plus to implement all the requirements. This one simple measure would bail out Portland schools.

And under NCLB, NO funds, repeat, no funds are provided to do ANYTHING for the child with the results of the tests, so why have them?

Next: I would focus solely on those things that schools have proven they can do well: team sports and cheerleading, music and arts, recess, school lunches, vaccinations -- things that are best done IN GROUPS (reading and math aren't among them). There is zero evidence (and this is an issue I have studied) that school efforts to teach reading (for example) have any long-term impact on people's long-term reading ability once they reach adulthood. None. Zippo. It's a myth, one of the many we have all been brought up with.

Next -- I would require developers to pay the full cost of new schools in areas where they develop new subdivisions. This wouldn't stop development of course (though it would prevent urban sprawl), but would provide an incentive for developers to work on re-development projects in inner cities.

None of this will happen of course. My proposals will be equally derided by all Republocrats, whether teachers' unions or real estate interests, federal, state, and local governments.
(I must be doing something right! )

Yeah, it's true. Ask any of the former employees of Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, ImClone, Martha Stewart, MCI (list abbreviated for lack of gigabyte space!). The biggest problem with schools is that there are aren't enough opportunities for rich folks to run off with the dough.

(Don't worry; the fix is coming! )

Shant,

I think the meaning behind the quote is that even school districts should be allowed to fail, and then re-organize.

And believe it, or not, I don't care for the No-Child-Left-Behind , mentality either. All that assures is mediocrity.

When you figure out how to make private companies pay for public projects, such as building schools, let me know.

I want to sell tickets.

Now you're talkin'! The whole history behind public education in the U.S. is an attempt on the part of industry (starting with John D. Rockefeller and the School of Education at the University of Chicago) to off-load its training needs onto us (the public) and to have us pay for our own enslavement.

(I invite all readers to www.johntaylorgatto.com for a good read! )

But, as I said, none of it will ever happen -- the Republocratic neo-Stalinists will make sure of that.

(First we test 'em half to death, then we go look in their bedrooms....)