Recently columnist Scott Bradshaw identified coming school reform initiatives likely to be raised in the coming legislative session. While I appreciate Mr. Bradshaw’s efforts, I do not believe he has properly conveyed the consequences of some of these proposals on the excellent quality Fayette County Public Schools.
First he correctly states that there is an annual underfunding of K-12 education based on the QBE formula that has been in effect for nearly 30 years. Fayette County Public Schools has been underfunded by over $100 million to date.
Mr. Bradshaw calls this a shortfall, which suggests the state has not collected enough revenue through the various funding mechanisms. While I am certain he did not intend to mislead the readers, this assertion is at best inaccurate.
The state legislature began intentionally underfunding K-12 education in the early 2000s before the recent recession, calling for school systems to “tighten their belts,” “cut waste,” and used words like austerity.
Now a new commission has developed a new funding scheme that purportedly fixes the formula of the past. The new plan is based on the current plan and now would pay more for high school student FTEs and less for elementary FTEs. The rationale is that with labs and other programs high schools cost more.
Accepting that thought for a second, one has to ask, when did elementary schools start to cost less? We have seen the state raise permitted class size to more than 30 students in grades as low as fourth grade as acceptable. We have proven over the years in Fayette that lower class size provides excellent results.
Worse, there is no mechanism to account for the year to year variability of student population across the grades that may produce spikes and dips in funding. The formula instead treats our students like widgets in a factory that can be shifted across plants or equipment based on variable demand that works in manufacturing theory but not in a school environment where there are more fixed costs, and shifting students across schools on an annual basis is problematic at best.
We need a thoughtful, thorough, and transparent process to determine what is needed and expected in K-12 education, then a comprehensive and complete costing of those needs, and last a mechanism to fund the strategy defined.
But even more directly, the question at hand is whose or what educational standard is this commission trying to meet? Is it one the Fayette taxpayers have come to expect or some more other cost-effective standard?
Already Fayette taxpayers have a much higher than average school property millage tax rate to keep just some of the Fayette Advantage we employed before the funding cuts began. At what point do we ask the state legislature to meet its constitutional obligation to fund education for Georgia’s students?
We have an opportunity to contact our Fayette delegation at the below emails and ask them to represent us and send the experts back to the drawing board to develop a plan to educate the children of Georgia and not just a spreadsheet to justify the pathetic educational performance of our state as measured against the rest of the country.
Fayette legislators and their email addresses are as follows:
Money alone doesn’t guarantee performance, but overcrowded classrooms with overworked and underpaid teachers will not provide the results we desire.
Neil Sullivan
Peachtree City, Ga.
