Cost
of education
School boards, administrators do the fiscal
waltz each year.
Sunday, September 26, 2004 • By BETH BRAVERMAN •
The Express-Times
The dance begins sometime around early March in New
Jersey; around early May in Pennsylvania.
School administrators waltz into special meetings with
their school boards to present "bare-bones" budgets pegged
as including "unavoidable" tax increases, "essential"
additional staff positions, "indispensable" new programs and
"vital" building renovations and projects.
Senior citizens and other tax watchdogs cut in,
hollering that the exponentially increasing property tax
bills have just about driven them from their homes. School
board members follow the lead of their voters, condemning
the tax hike and sending administrators back to the drawing
board to find ways to trim the budget.
So administrators twirl around, offering a pared down
budget that eliminates some of the "essential" positions,
programs and renovations. They claim any further cuts would
damage their ability to provide quality education to their
children.
Parents and students begin to circle, worrying the new
cuts will lead to larger class sizes and eliminate Johnny's
favorite class -- the only reason he comes to school. School
board members ask for more cuts, but make it clear that
Johnny's favorite class must remain.
Administrators bop back for round three, determining
they can make do for one more year without a social studies
coordinator and finding a few hundred thousand extra dollars
in the district's fund balance.
The school board performs a final pirouette, passing a
budget that pleases no one.
In New Jersey, it's more of a country square dance in
which no one leads and voters determine the finale when the
budgets go before them in a referendum. Pennsylvania voters
will receive more power through a similar referendum
provision this year.
School opens without fail in September, and six to eight
months later, the dance begins again.
Billions and billions of
dollars for schools
But that's only the dance the public sees. The real
tango takes place all year long, as school administrators
struggle to swing back and forth between their obligations
to provide a quality education with the responsibility to
keep taxes as low as possible.
Public school budgets have skyrocketed in recent years.
The United States spent $454 billion to educate its children
in 2001, the most recent figures available from the National
Center for Education Statistics. That's nearly twice the
$261 billion spent on education in 1991, just a decade
earlier.
School budgets in the Lehigh Valley and northwest New
Jersey have risen along with their counterparts nationwide.
Because both states receive more than 60 percent of their
funding from local property taxes, homeowners have become
acutely aware of the rising costs of public education.
"I feel bad for (taxpayers on a fixed income) because
their local taxes are getting extremely high," said Delaware
Valley Regional School District Superintendent Martin
Matula. "But we have to fund the schools somewhere."
Critics say rapidly growing school budgets have not led
to rapidly increasing student achievement. The average
reading level for 17-year-olds has not changed since the
1970s, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
"If I give you 4 percent more money, are you producing 4
percent more results?" asked Bruce Cooper, an education
finance expert and chairman of the Division of Education
Leadership and Policy at Fordham University's Graduate
School of Education. "The answer is no."
Pennsylvania and New Jersey both rank among the states
that spend the most per pupil. Data from 2001-02 from the
National Education Association shows New Jersey as the third
highest spender, allocating an average $10,869 per student.
Pennsylvania came in 16th, apportioning an average of $8,070
per student. The national average is $7,548 per student.
Despite the increased spending, each state performed just
slightly better than the national average on the National
Assessment of Educational Progress.
Administrators say the increasingly rapid beat of the
budget ballet stems from rising personnel costs, increased
mandates from the state and local government and general
inflation as the source of unprecedented growth of school
budgets.
"Although the state gives us more money, in terms of
dollars, than 10 years ago, the percentage of state funding
has dropped dramatically," said Pen Argyl Area School
District Superintendent Bill Haberl.
The administrators who spoke to The Express-Times for
this report claim that education's "fixed costs" make up 70
to 80 percent of their budgets, providing little wiggle room
for cuts.
"Everyone here wants a status quo, especially in the
budget situation, but it's becoming close to impossible,"
said Wally Schlegel, the Pen Argyl Area School District
business manager.
The problem, according to Cooper, is that most increased
costs end up paying for overhead, not for curriculum.
It takes big bucks to
attract good people
Schools are personnel-intensive institutions. Employee
salaries and fringe benefits make up an overwhelming portion
of their budgets.
"We don't spend money on the machines and equipment that
other industries do," Haberl said.
Pen Argyl Area School District spends $11.9 million on
personnel costs, which makes up about 65 percent of the
district's budget. Pen Argyl teachers receive an average
salary of $51,416 per year.
"Twenty or 30 years ago, teachers were underpaid,"
Haberl said. "They're not underpaid anymore. I think they're
appropriately paid."
Bethlehem Area School District teachers earn an average
of $50,427 per year, and the district has more than a
thousand teachers.
"Sure, you could do with less staff, if you want to
raise class size" said Bethlehem Area School District
Superintendent Joseph Lewis. "But does that affect
performance? Absolutely."
Before beginning the budget boogie, district
administrators synchronize their teachers' salaries with
those of other local districts.
Districts will also lose their teachers if they do not
keep competitive with the private sector in a market-driven
economy, said Bethlehem Area School District Business
Administrator Stanley Majewski Jr.
"This is not an era to focus on controlling costs for
teacher salaries," added Bangor Area School District
Superintendent John Reinhart. "We are at an extremely
competitive time in public education. This is the most
difficult time in my career to consider negotiating down our
employment contracts."
Health care and salary obligations often get lumped into
the "fixed-costs" category when administrators talk about
their budgets, but they do not always belong there, argues
Neil McCluskey, a policy analyst at the National Center for
Educational Freedom, a Washington, D.C.-based think
tank.
"I don't think the fixed costs argument is a good one,"
he said. "In the very short term there are fixed costs, but
over several years, those things can be changed."
Districts can hire and fire teachers and renegotiate
contracts, he said.
In New Jersey, the state places restrictions on teacher
salaries. Delaware Valley Regional School District, which
pays its teachers $48,632, falls below the state pay
scale.
"If you want good people in the classroom, you have to
provide them with a decent living wage," Matula said.
"People with bachelor's and master's degrees deserve a
salary that will allow them to live and raise a
family."
Pen Argyl Area School District administrators receive an
average of $73,000 per year. Haberl defended those salaries
as well.
"They should be paid more," he said. "They have more
schooling than a teacher. A teacher is responsible for 25
kids. A principal is responsible for 700 students plus 35
staff members."
In addition to increasing salaries, soaring health care
costs have made it even more difficult to orchestrate a
stagnant budget. In a study conducted this year by the
Association of School Business Officials International, 95
percent of those surveyed told the organization the cost of
health insurance is a bigger problem now than ever.
Of those who responded to the survey, more than half
claimed the amount spent on health benefits had gone up more
than 21 percent in the last three years.
"Health care cost is just going through the roof, and
school districts are not insulated from it," said Schlegel
of Pen Argyl, where health care costs will swell 16 percent
between this year and next.
Special education: A
burden and obligation
State requirements placed on special education programs
help schools meet their constitutional obligation to provide
an adequate education to all children. But those services
come at a very high cost.
By law, schools that cannot provide an adequate
education to a special-needs child must pay another district
to provide such services. Those costs can run more than
$100,000 per child.
Delaware Valley Regional School District spent $160,000
on a single special education student last year.
"We could have hired four teachers for that money,"
Superintendent Matula said.
In the past decade, the number of children identified as
requiring special education under the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act has increased 22.3 percent in New
Jersey and 10.6 percent in Pennsylvania. These increasing
numbers have added steps to the budget dance that never
before existed.
"These kids didn't receive the same services 30 years
ago," Haberl said. "They had learning problems or behavioral
problems, but they weren't diagnosed as special
education."
Bethlehem Area School District sends several severely
disabled children to schools in Philadelphia and Scranton.
Transportation for those students alone can run in excess of
$50,000. The district must pay for gas for the daily
160-mile trip to and from Philadelphia and the salaries and
benefits for a union bus driver, and union aide who sits on
the bus with one student. On top of that, the district must
shell out the student's tuition.
Students identified as needing special education can
range from having learning disabilities and emotional
disorders to severe physical disabilities. Those students
who remain in regular school must attend classes with no
more than 12 students and have access to learning support
staff trained to meet their needs. All of those cost
money.
"The laws are so stringent today, and you can find a
psychologist anywhere who will say your child needs special
education for some reason," Haberl said.
In addition, more children than ever before come from
single-parent households and come into school with more
emotional needs than their parents or grandparents had, said
Pen Argyl's Schlegel.
Lewis agreed that children of today come to school
needier than children of generations past. Schools must meet
those needs in order to offer a quality education, but doing
so requires money, he said.
"We're a mirror image of the society we serve," Lewis
said, adding that society has more fragmented families,
children of poverty and English language learners than ever
before, he said.
"All of those things cost money to remedy," Lewis said.
"If you come to school hungry, I can't teach you. If you
come to school with medical issues or emotional issues, it
is harder to teach you."
Bethlehem Area offers family centers in many of its
schools, which offer basic social services to families and
health services to children. The district also provides
dental exams and scoliosis screenings to students who need
them.
"The reality is that lots of school districts,
especially the poorest and largest districts, have a huge
amount of waste," said McCluskey of the National Center for
Educational Freedom. "That's because we ask those school
districts to run the most programs, and they're not just
educational programs."
If schools could focus solely on educating children,
their mission would come at a much cheaper cost, he
said.
State mandates mean
schools have no choice
For many administrators, state and federal legislation
dictates each step in the budget process, but when the state
does not fund those mandates, the district is left trying to
follow the steps without any music.
Special education represents only one of many state and
federal mandates that have varying effects on school
budgets. The state has stringent, and often costly,
requirements regarding transportation, teachers' pensions,
charter schools, English as a Second Language programs and
paying the prevailing wage on building projects.
"When you take a look at who is creating these costs for
us, it's the state," Majewski said.
But the state is not providing adequate resources to pay
for those requirements, he added.
In 2003-04, the Bethlehem Area School District had a
budget of $139 million. About 21 percent, or $29.8 million,
came from the state; 73.83 percent, or $97.9 million, came
from local taxpayers.
Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey require local public
school districts to pay for students who opt to attend local
charter schools. Charter schools have existed in New Jersey
since 1995 and in Pennsylvania since 1997, but their
popularity has only recently begun to broaden
significantly.
"Several years ago we paid nothing for charter schools,"
Majewski said. "Next year, we will pay $3 million."
Pen Argyl Area School District used to fulfill its
English as a Second Language requirement by teaching ESL
students after school and paying a few teachers overtime.
Then last year, the state Department of Education told Pen
Argyl it needed full-time teachers to administer the program
properly.
The district had to add two new full-time ESL
teachers.
"And ultimately, the taxpayers are funding that," Haberl
said.
Delaware Valley Regional School District had to increase
its transportation budget a few years ago after the state
began requiring seatbelts and special seats on existing
buses.
A Pennsylvania law regulating transportation recently
changed the rules for how many children a bus can transport.
The result for Bangor Area School District has been a new
bus purchase every year, which means another new bus driver
and extra fuel costs.
The most extensive federal mandate to hit schools in
recent years is No Child Left Behind, a sweeping education
reform law that requires students to take standardized tests
in grades three through eight and once in high school. The
law taps into most aspects of the budget process and makes
schools accountable for the performance of their students
based on those test scores.
Schools whose students do not perform adequately on the
tests face sanctions that range from forced tutoring
programs to reconstitutions of the schools.
A study by the American Association of School
Administrators found it would cost an additional 130 billion
new dollars to fully meet the standards of the law
throughout the country. Locally, school administrators have
had trouble pinpointing the specific amount of money spent
on implementing No Child Left Behind, but they agree it has
increased their budgets.
Schools have brought in new teachers, implemented
tutoring programs and have had to offer new professional
development to keep teachers certified under the law. The
law, which stresses school accountability, also brings loads
of red tape for administrators and secretaries to sort
through.
"The amount of paperwork is beginning to push the limits
of what my staff can handle," Delaware Valley's Matula
said.
Fugitive budgets barely
outpacing inflation
General inflation also drives up the costs of running a
school district, and many of those items necessary to run a
school have increased in cost beyond the rate of
inflation.
"This is what's necessary to run a school," Haberl said
of Pen Argyl Area School District's $18.3 million budget.
"There are no bells and whistles."
Taxpayers sometimes compare school budgets to those of
industries in the private sector, but it is an unfair
comparison, Lewis said.
"If the private sector is having difficulty managing
their budgets, they close plants and lay off people,"
Majewski said. "They go to options we don't have. We can't
close schools."
One way the Bethlehem Area School District tries to
manage costs is by watching the fuel market to determine the
best time to go out to bid and buy fuel in bulk.
Delaware Valley Regional School District takes another
approach, entering into joint purchasing endeavors with
other local districts and municipalities.
"We just try to do good business and employ good
business practices," Majewski said.
Other uncontrollable education costs include textbooks
and technology. They come at a hefty price, but are
essential to provide a competitive education, administrators
said.
"You can't use a book that says man will someday land on
the moon," Haberl said.
And like most industries, schools have become more
dependent on lawyers than ever before. Local school boards
have district solicitors, not only to follow the
ever-changing legislative landscape of education, but also
to provide advice for expulsions, contract negotiations and
lawsuits.
"Public education has become so litigious that I have to
speak with the attorneys several times a day," said Charles
Shaddow, superintendent of North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional
High School District.
School administrators
squeezed in dollar vice
The budget areas over which school administrators can
control often include those programs which they are hesitant
to cut, administrators said. Those include extracurricular
activities and elective classes.
Delaware Valley Regional School District, for example,
sets aside $630,000 for athletic programs.
"But in the United States of America, the co-curricular
activities are an important part of our curriculum," Matula
said.
Extracurricular activities allow students to build
personal, physical and emotional skills that may not develop
in the classroom, he said.
For rural districts like Delaware Valley, which covers
89 square miles, after-school programs also provide an
important opportunity to socialize, Matula said.
"We try to provide the kinds of programs that are broad
enough that any kid who wants to find a decent activity can
find one," he said.
But at some point, school districts need to make those
cuts, McCluskey said. For example, if a school's students
cannot read at their grade levels, the responsible choice
for districts would be to eliminate athletic coaches and
hire teachers, he said.
"There are probably plenty of places that money could be
taken from," he said. "Unfortunately, they're not the
popular places."
Districts can make cuts throughout the year, but too
many cuts will affect the quality of the education it
provides to its students, Shaddow said.
"We're one of the finest districts in the state,"
Shaddow said of North Hunterdon-Voorhees. "Our curriculum,
our co-curricular activities and our teaching staff are the
reasons we are as good as we are. When you cut back, you
take a chance that you won t be that quality district much
longer.
Reporter Beth Braverman can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by
e-mail at bbraverman@express-times.com
Copyright 2004 The
Express-Times. Used with permission.
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