I had the opportunity to spend the day at the state capitol with our local legislators yesterday and I feel like I learned quite a bit. One specific issue stuck out to me because it has been in the news lately. I'm talking about class size reduction and all the media attention it has recieved. The local news did a report on class size spending and the opinion that was given was that lots of money has been spent and class sizes have remained the same. Some legislators would have us believe that since so much money has been thrown at class size and nothing has happened we must be wasting money. Here are some of the omitted facts:
First, class size funding has been under or un-funded for the past seven years. The reason for this is (drum roll please) somehow, no one took into consideration the growth we would have over that time. So all funding numbers have been based on exisiting students, not potential students.
Second, the legislature assigned their own auditors to "follow the money trail". Adhering to this request, the auditors realized that during the last economic down turn (about seven years ago) the legislature removed the requirement that class room funds be accounted for. With the argument that tracking funds is expensive, the codes that required tracking were revised.
Luckily, 40% of administrators decided to track the money anyway so there were some numbers that could be used by the auditors.
The results of that audit were, as I stated before, that for a 7 year stretch, classes were under or un-funded and there was no foresight for exponential growth.
The result is HB 194. A 26 million dollar bill for class size reduction. This is a tiered bill, in that it comes in 5 million dollar increments based on benchmarks. Unfortunately, this year there is not enough money to do everything the public wants.
In addition to class room funding (or in competition with) is teacher pay. Currently there is 171 million in the education coffers. If we give each teacher a $2,500 raise then that only leaves 3 million for class room funding and of course, the numbers flip when the money is spent on class room funding and not teacher pay. (There are other numbers such as increasing the WPU to 7 or making it 3 which can tweek the numbers also and there is not the surplus that has been reported due to a slight slowing in the economy. That's a whole other entry.)
It seems this year we are stuck between two good decisions. I of course, am for better teacher pay but I am also for smaller class sizes. I am going to contact my legislator to see what his thoughts are and I encourage everyone to do the same. Let's make sure that the best action is taken for our kids.
You can find your legislator's information at www.le.state.ut.us
2 comments:
Thanks for the informative post... it seems that most good things only come at the expense of other good things... I want to have it all!!! Thank you for keeping us informed.
Good post. I'll have to look up my legislator. There is no doubt that class size is an issue (but it's worse in other states and the current situation is doable, especially in schools that have other programs to help diverse students).
I really think teacher pay is the bigger issue. Many good teachers leave the state, or the profession, because they can make better money elsewhere. If Utah can keep, and recruit, capable teachers class size may not be such an issue.
If more/better teachers stay due to pay increases then it's possible that the entire education system will receive a facelift. If so, maybe the education program will eventually receive more money if the government feels like they are actually funding a growing, stable, progressive program. Just a thought.
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