During the current fiscal crisis facing Ohio (and many other states) we've heard our share of cost-savings ideas for K-12 education. Cleveland is abolishing its budget to pay for school uniforms for poor kids; many other districts are eliminating extra-curricular activities or instituting pay-to-play fees for student-athletes; others are cutting busing services.
Lots of these cost-savings strategies are impacting students in negative ways, and even worse is that fact that such cuts aren't really saving much money ? at least, not enough to truly address Ohio's massive budget deficit and the likely cuts facing K-12 education.
That's why Emmy's op-ed in today's Columbus Dispatch is so appropriate (albeit sure to be controversial among educators). In it she argues that even raising average student-teacher ratios by one student would save $276 million in teachers' salaries alone; raising ratios to 20:1 among districts that fall below that would create $458 million in savings. And 25:1? Ohio could see savings of $1.38 billion, annually.
She also illustrates what this means for districts going to the ballot and asking voters for more money:
Take Bexley, which is asking voters for an additional $3 million per year on Nov. 2. Bexley's reported student-teacher ratio, from the most recent data available, is just over 16-to-1. Increasing it to 20-to-1 would realize up to $1.8 million per year in savings in teachers' salaries alone. Boosting it to 22-to-1 would save $2.4 million ? just $600,000 shy of what voters are being asked to support.
Ohio needs to think big when it comes to filling the $8 billion budget hole it faces, and rethinking student-ratios in the manner Emmy suggests is one way to do it. Cutting busing and removing sports programs are sure to be less politically explosive ways to save money, but we're not fooling anybody by acting as if this is sufficient. True savings potential will only come from rethinking our highest spending categories. In education, that is and has always been teachers' salaries and benefits.
- Jamie Davies O'Leary
