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Foes of School Spending Bill Say It's Prescription for Trouble

Posted on: Thursday, 23 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By Bridget Gutierrez, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Feb. 23--At Jefferson Parkway Elementary School in Newnan, hardly an hour goes by without Nancy Sexton seeing a student.

Whether one shows up at her clinic door with a fever or she's dispensing medicine at another's desk, Sexton, a full-time nurse at the 351-student school, attends to their health needs.

Teachers rely on Sexton to take care of bumps, sore throats and tummy aches so children can stay in school. But state legislators are considering a law that some critics say jeopardizes support personnel like her.

Gov. Sonny Perdue and Republican leaders are pushing a controversial mandate through the Georgia General Assembly that would force school systems to spend nearly two-thirds of their funding on "direct classroom expenditures" --- a definition that excludes nurses, guidance counselors, librarians, principals and other school staff.

"The more I hear about it, the less I like it," said Tim Mullen, a seventh-grade science teacher at Richards Middle School in Lawrenceville. "If my kids are having a bad day, they're useless to me.

If they're sick... they're not going to work. I don't know how a teacher could do a research project [without] a media specialist...

We can't do this all alone."

Both the House and Senate have passed the "Classrooms First for Georgia Act," a key component of Perdue's election-year education agenda. The Senate now needs to approve changes made by the House before it is sent to the governor.

Under Senate Bill 390, benefits and salaries of teaching assistants would be included in the 65 percent allowed for classroom expenses, but those of principals would not. Field trips would be covered, but the costs of running buses between homes and campuses wouldn't.

Construction paper, glue, markers and other supplies would fit the bill's definition, but not library books. Neither would heat to warm classrooms or electricity to light them.

Perdue and other supporters say the plan will encourage systems to cut waste, shift more resources to the classroom without raising taxes and improve state test scores, SATs and graduation rates.

Education advocates and lobbyists say systems would be forced to make budget decisions based on an unproven standard and may have to raise property taxes to increase classroom spending without stripping other areas.

While the bill has become a largely partisan issue at the Capitol with only a handful of Democrats supporting the legislation, reactions in the community are mixed.

Complicated question

Some parents, teachers and other concerned citizens say funneling dollars to teachers and textbooks makes sense.

"I agree with that," said Lois Baines-Hunter, who sits on the Clayton County Board of Education, which spent close to 64 percent on instruction in the 2002-03 school year, the latest figures available.

"If we can't put that 65 percent in the classroom... we need to go back and rethink what we're doing."

Others say the concept isn't that simple, particularly when school systems have different needs. Schools also have responsibilities, they argue -- such as feeding and transporting students or keeping schools clean and safe -- that can't be shirked.

"Unless you delve into it and know education funding, it's hard to explain to people why it's not a good idea," said Alpharetta mother Julie Haley, a legislative liaison for the Georgia PTA, which opposes the plan. "Some of the rural school districts are going to be under 65 percent no matter what they do because they have high fixed transportation costs... Is that fair?"

According to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics, a research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, in 2002-03 only two states spent at least 65 percent on instruction: Maine with 67.1 percent and New York with 68.7 percent. Georgia spent 63.3 percent that school year, slightly more than the national average of 61.3 percent.

The proposal, which is being pushed by Arizona-based First Class Education, is being discussed in close to a dozen states, according to the group. Georgia is headed to becoming the fourth state to implement the standard, joining Louisiana, Kansas and Texas, all of which adopted similar rules last year.

Tim Mooney, a Republican consultant who directs First Class Education, has made the claim that the top-performing states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress also spend the most in the classroom.

Both Maine and New York scored above the national averages on the NAEP reading exam in 2003. But so did dozens of other states, many of which matched or beat their scores.

"You can have very high test scores and be very inefficient in spending, and you can be very efficient in spending money and not have high test scores," Mooney said. "But we think this percentage will make a difference. And even if it doesn't, being a wise steward of education dollars is an equally positive goal."

Supporters argue there's plenty of waste to cut --- even for urban systems that have high numbers of at-risk students, who need more help from personnel such as social workers and guidance counselors.

Jennifer Rippner, the governor's education policy adviser, said the state Department of Education would issue suggestions for systems on how to cut costs without sacrificing quality.

"It's not firing nurses or counselors or librarians," she told lawmakers. "It's finding savings in food service... or cost savings on insurance or administration... We fully intend to give support on this. Instead of just saying, 'Here you go, do it.'"

Although many educators agree with the legislation's intent, they've almost universally condemned the idea as an unrealistic approach to funding schools. But their efforts to expand the definition of classroom spending -- which some call "ill-informed" -- to include teacher training and libraries, among other necessities, failed.

Some believe the mandate, which would go into effect in the 2007-08 school year, would force them to cut vital programs or prevent them from hiring sorely needed personnel.

Many are perplexed that guidance counselors, media specialists and school nurses are excluded because all help educate students --- whether a nurse leads a lesson on puberty, a librarian gives a lecture on the pitfalls of using the Internet for research, or a guidance counselor organizes a forum on how to get into college.

"Our system spends 67 percent or 66 percent, so I don't think we're going to have to worry about anything," said Roy Rabold, principal of Sandy Creek High School in Fayette County. "But do I think it's a good rule? No. I think they leave too many people out of the equation."

Lawmakers have included a "hardship waiver" in the bill to account for unforeseen economic circumstances, such as soaring fuel costs or natural disasters, that could keep school systems from meeting the target.

There's also a provision that allows those performing well academically to be exempt from the rule.

Even with those exceptions, many are against the plan, which allows the state to withhold funds from systems that do not comply.

In Cobb County, Chief Financial Officer Robert Morales figures his school system is right at the 65 percent mark. If the law were in effect today, he said he probably would have advised the county Board of Education not to hire seven social workers, as it did in December, even though schools needed them.

"It could possibly... cause us to lose state funding," Morales said.

"You have the chief financial officer making recommendations about academic decisions when I shouldn't be part of that decision at all."

At Jefferson Parkway Elementary, it's not unusual for the school nurse to tend to dozens of students a day.

When Sexton's not taking temperatures or fielding phone calls from parents of medically fragile students, she may prepare an emergency plan for a student who has a seizure condition or work on a lesson about how germs spread, among other duties.

Sitting inside her lavender-colored clinic recently, Sexton said she's gotten use to the uncertainty of her job, knowing that funding might not always be available for a full-time nurse.

Asked what would happen to sick students if her job was cut, Sexton didn't hesitate: "The teachers will have to take up the slack."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

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