Learning, Teaching, Funding, and Education - Granite Grok

Learning, Teaching, Funding, and Education

schools2 (1) NY PostBy Rep. Dave Testerman

In New Hampshire, most public school funding originates in the pocketbook of local taxpayers and most of us hope we elect a local school board that watches out not only for the students but also the taxpayer. It doesn’t always work out, but we have had some very good board members in Franklin.

A much larger problem has occurred at the State Board of Education level. Unfortunately, our state has appointed State School Board members for 18 of the last 20 years that loved regulations and micromanaging our public schools.

With backing by the NH School Boards Association and the School Administrators Association, the pressure on local schools and Superintendents has been to simply comply with whatever the DoE and the State Board said…or else. Frankly, it hasn’t been working. So what has been the effect on school funding?

I recently read a state report on education from 1890. Besides reporting that Plymouth “Normal” School for teachers now had heat in the classrooms, it said the biggest issue facing school was how to help poor rural schools to pay for education. Things haven’t changed much.  The numbers are larger but the problems remain.

What we call school funding amounts to several different funding streams by the time it arrives at the local school district. What is important to know is that almost all the funding initiates from local property taxes from us, the local taxpayers.

The main funding is called STATE ADEQUACY which is a term arising out of the Claremont lawsuit(s) but the amount is determined by the Legislature and paid from the State Education Trust Fund.

Real estate taxes and the State Lottery fund the Education Trust Fund.

The second funding source comes to the schools as money designated for students on the federal “free and reduced lunch program.”

There is a relatively new state funding source designed for 3rd-grade kids who don’t read or compute at 3rd-grade levels. Sadly, the money according to the law does not have to help those students read or do math or be used for any academic purpose at all. It’s a bad law.

The next funding source(s) are classified as “differentiated aid” and include all funding for special needs kids including a reimbursement scheme called catastrophic aid.

Finally, a recent hotly debated funding source (especially for Franklin and other lower income towns) is called stabilization. Stabilization was meant to be a transition payment to lessen the burden from other funding changes made during the legislative years of 2010-2011. School Boards would have been wise to plan for the eventual reduction of stabilization funding and logic would say that the school boards should have been advised by the NH School Board Association to expect a future reduction.

Lots of finger pointing when the planned reductions occurred.

So where are we now in the scheme of funding our public schools?

Many different people say they are underfunded and that is a question often asked in Concord.  On one side people point to the statistics on a per pupil basis that show we are spending (on average) more and more each year. That is, our combined public-school budgets are growing and growing.

On the other side, because we have a continuously declining public-school population statewide and we fund everything at the state level on a per-student basis, we simply aren’t budgeting as much for adequacy.

Why is the cost to educate students growing when the student population is falling?

The answer is not a simple one.

One large part is we are asking the schools to do more and more and they, as a result, are demanding more and more personnel to comply.

We have expensive problems to deal with arising from “No Child Left Behind” and Every Child Succeeds.”

We have schools that are asked to be essentially surrogate parents and the fastest growing population in any school is non-teaching personnel.

As a state, we have a much larger staff of administration, counselors, classroom assistants, and special education teachers.

This is all true but should it be this way?

In 1992 Scientific American studied why immigrant Asian students were doing so well academically in US schools. They were often the class valedictorians and in some colleges were even denied admittance because there were just too many high- performing Asian students and it was deemed to be unfair to other groups.

The SA study looked at a variety of factors from genetics to home life. What they found was these students in most cases, didn’t lead “charmed lives.” In fact, a majority lived in the worst ghettos.  English was not spoken at home.  The schools attended were NOT also “the very best”.   They attended schools that were the worst with gangs and poor funding.

So, what was it?

What allowed these disadvantaged students to not only survive but thrive?

The answer was discovered during home visits. They found that after the family finished dinner and cleared and washed the dishes, they sat down at the table and started their homework.  The parents and grandparents watched closely and asked questions and the homework was done.

The study concluded that the single most important thing for these kid’s success was a family structure that cared and reinforced the importance of education.

Many of the letters I get these days from parents who want to be involved with their kid’s education simply can’t because of the rapid and drastic changes we have made with Common Core and before that, Everyday Math and Whole Language. In the haste to push the design, we neglected one of our best resources, engaged parents.

Unintended consequences.

Our school personnel cannot replace engaged parents no matter how much teachers care for the students.

We simply can’t continue to pour money into our schools, trying one experiment after another and hope this next “new and improved” program will do the job.

Remember, parents have only one chance to get their child’s education RIGHT.

I’m suggesting that we should listen to teachers more. They are on the battle lines but we seem to have taken away their best skill set; being teachers and being creative.

I’m not opposed to paying teachers more but our standards to get licensed need to be better. We also need merit pay. Good teachers need to be compensated as good teachers.

Nothing kills morale and creativity faster than to see a colleague who doesn’t try his or her hardest getting the same compensation just because they have shown up to work the same number of years.

I looked at teacher salaries in Franklin and in my opinion, they are abysmal. The city administrators, many of the police and firemen, and other city workers are better paid. This is also true of our school administrator.

Part of that is explained by the hours worked by teachers, which is relevant but not to all.

If we want professional teachers in Franklin, we need to be willing to pay professional salaries.

This year Representative Horne is going to introduce a bill to keep to additional funding constant for poor districts and I’ll co-sponsor it, but we still can’t answer the question of fewer students with increased budgets.

Another representative will offer legislation to allow the market to influence teacher salaries.

It seems logical for school districts to pay some teaching positions that are most difficult to fill (math and science especially) more than others that are easy to fill. We have to change our culture and show and encourage parents to be engaged.

Charter School parents have already committed to the responsibility and have excellent results.  No reason why public school parents can’t assume the same level of responsibility. And we have to reject the idea that schools can replace parents.

If you are a parent it is unacceptable to pass your responsibility onto another. I believe the only way this will ever work is if parents get involved and teachers are allowed to teach. I know this is not what a lot of you wanted to hear, but it is the reality as I know it. Families are the key.

If you want to contact me to talk about this or anything else, please call at (603) 320-9524 or email at dave@sanbornhall.net.  I’ll be looking forward to your comments.

Cheers!
Dave Testerman
Representative for Hill and Franklin

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