Two years ago, Education Secretary Arne Duncan famously warned of the impact that the Great Recession would have on K-12 schools: “For the next several years, preschool, K–12, and postsecondary educators are likely to face the challenge of doing more with less.” At the same time he was bullish about the opportunities presented to schools by this “new normal”:
My message is that this challenge can, and should, be embraced as an opportunity to make dramatic improvements. I believe enormous opportunities for improving the productivity of our education system lie ahead if we are smart, innovative, and courageous in rethinking the status quo.
Thanks to federal stimulus dollars, most Ohio school districts have not yet fully adjusted their practices to the new normal – though some are doing admirable work in this area, nor have they sought major increases in productivity. But sooner rather than later they will have to. Governor Kasich is crafting a school-funding plan, to be unveiled early next year – and the legislature is doing its own work on the topic. But no one believes more money will be poured into public education in the next state budget, as the governor is committed to not raising taxes or “growing government” and as Medicaid and other state obligations are eating up more and more of the state’s budget. Further, downturned property values mean less local revenue for schools.
So, as districts grapple with how to spend less without diminishing quality, what changes should they prioritize? Namely, which actions will local community members – the voters who elect the school board and decide its local funding fate – tolerate most? A new study from Fordham-DC provides some insights.
Fordham-DC commissioned the expert survey researchers at the FDR Group to gauge how people feel about trimming spending in K-12 education. The findings appear in How Americans Would Slim Down Public Education, which presents results from a nationally representative survey of American adults, including parents of school-age children. The survey asked them to wrestle with many of the same budgetary trade-offs that face today’s school boards and superintendents. Three years ago we asked similar questions of Ohioans in a broader education survey – also conducted by the FDR Group, in partnership with Catalyst Ohio, Checked Out: Ohioans Views on Education 2009. Following is a glimpse at what we learned, nationally in 2012 and in Ohio in 2009.
Nationally, in 2012:
- Americans are realistic about the need for smarter education spending. Forty-eight percent would cut costs by dramatically changing district operations; just twenty-six percent recommend changing as little as possible and waiting for things to get better.
- The public thinks districts could get by with fewer administrators, 69 percent supporting this as a way to save money.
- Effectiveness trumps other factors when it comes to teachers. Seventy-three percent would elect to have stronger instructors teaching larger groups of pupils than small classes taught by teachers who might not be so strong. When it comes to laying off teachers, as a last resort, 74 percent say the most important factor should be effectiveness, not years of service or tenure.
- Taxpayers sometimes want to have their cake and eat it, too. If forced to choose between pay cuts and layoffs, 74 percent prefer cutting all teacher salaries by 5 percent versus laying off 5 percent of the instructional staff. At the same time, however, 67 percent favor “extending teachers’ workday by one hour and using the time to collaborate with other teachers and tutor students.”
- The public is mixed about other options for saving money: Only 23 percent would save money by charging fees for sports and extra-curricular activities; while 42 percent see blended classes – a mix of online and face-to-face instruction – as an option for saving money, 46 percent would stay away from such classes.
Our 2009 Ohio survey covered a wider range of education issues. Here is what Buckeyes had to say when it came to school funding and spending:
- Equity matters, but taxpayers weren’t eager to foot the bill. Eighty-eight percent of Ohioans thought it important to “even out” education spending across districts. Yet just 42 percent were willing to pay more in taxes to support increased spending.
- Ohioans were skeptical more money would equate to improved education. If Ohio spent more on its public schools, only 22 percent of Ohioans believed “the money would actually get to the classrooms and improve education.” The vast majority (74 percent) predicted that the money would “get lost along the way.” (This percentage had gradually risen—from 69 percent in 2005 and 71 percent in 2007.)
- They favored local control. An overwhelming 87 percent favored “giving local public schools more freedom to fire teachers that aren’t performing” and only 11 percent opposed this. When it came to school spending and school decisions, Ohioans trusted local school districts and school leaders more than elected state officials. They were far more likely (47 percent) to trust their local school district to decide how to spend tax money on public schools than to trust the governor (3 percent), the legislature (4 percent), or the State Board of Education (17 percent). (Twenty-two percent would have trusted individual schools.)
- Ohioans supported tying teacher pay to classroom effectiveness, not years of service. By a 69 percent to 15 percent margin, they preferred paying teachers according to their “performance and how effectively they teach” over “years of service and the degrees they’ve earned.” Ohioans also supported (72 percent) “paying higher salaries to teachers who work in tough neighborhoods with hard-to-reach students” and (66 percent) “paying higher salaries to teachers who specialize in hard-to-fill subjects such as science or mathematics.”
For the most part, Americans are sensible about how to achieve cost savings in public education. And although our Ohio survey was conducted some 18 months before Sec. Duncan’s fiscal warning message to schools and before districts felt today’s fiscal crunch, it showed that Ohioans were already embracing the idea of ending business as usual in K-12 education. The challenge now is turning those views into action at the state and local level. As Fordham’s Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Amber Winkler write in the new report’s Foreword:
Public sentiment alone doesn’t shed the budgetary pounds. There’s lot of hard work ahead, many calories to be burned, much strength and endurance to be mustered. Dynamic, visionary, yet astute leadership is also going to be needed—the budgetary equivalent of personal trainers and daily exercise regimens. Such leadership must make the case for efficiency and adherence to its new diet-and-fitness plan. If not, public education will lumber under the burden of its own weight—and fail to make the gains in speed, agility, and stamina that it so clearly needs to do its vital job under today’s fiscal conditions and educational demands. As candidates court voters for state and local (and national) elections this fall, they should draw courage from the knowledge that the public will have their backs if they face these issues head on.
