Posted on 11/05/2003 4:37:18 PM PST by SJackson
Schools always have seemed to be the center of every rural community. They provide an identity to a community; people even 10 or more miles outside of a city's or village's boundaries most often associate themselves with being "from" the school district that covers their rural world.
Unfortunately, schools over the years also have become the most expensive service for which rural taxpayers have been asked to pay.
There have been moves to ease the property burden on those rural taxpayers, but in the end the moves have been little more than shifts from one tax to another. Even use-value assessment rules - which lifted some of the tax burden from cash-strapped farmers - did little in solving the deepest of school tax questions. Real reform is needed.
In past debates, school cost and tax questions have drawn divisions between teachers, school boards and taxpayers. State legislators have done their share to sharpen the sticks that have been used to draw the lines between those groups, creating laws that only bolstered one group's position at the expense of the others.
Instead of taking that approach, it's time that legislators take the most bold actions and grasp full control of Wisconsin's public education system. The first reform should be to make teachers state employees. Teachers would be paid on the same scale no matter the public school system in which they teach. Educators in poor, rural districts would be paid the same as those in the most upscale suburban districts. Paying teachers from a state funding pool would eliminate district-by-district pay scale questions and serve to keep staff from bolting from a poorer district to a richer district. It also would reward those high-quality teachers whose dedication to education has kept them in lower-paying districts.
Most of all, it could expand use of the health insurance fund that covers state employees. That fund is helping to hold state employee health insurance costs in check relative to the gigantic insurance cost increases that have to be covered by local school districts. Health insurance costs are at the center of most school districts' employee costs problems.
Even with teachers being state employees, local boards of education still should have the final say on local schools' curriculum. Only the responsibilities for wages and benefits should be lifted from the district-level responsibilities.
While there still would be plenty of localized taxation to cover everything from building maintenance to supplies, the idea of having teachers paid by the state through income and sales taxes should be examined. It could answer many concerns that are raised under the present system.
The second major change should be a shift from the more than 400 school districts in the state to no more than 72 districts. That would mean that school districts would be administered on a county basis.
County school districts would help to spread many of the administration and special education costs that overwhelm smaller, rural districts. Such a move would solve the problem of shortages of school administrators. It also would solve the inequity of small districts having to pay similar wages to those paid by large, multiple-school districts where an administrator oversees several thousand students.
Communities with small schools could potentially maintain their local school facilities - complete with their own core education and athletic programs - but positions such as district administrators, principals, psychologists and guidance counselors would be spread throughout the county district.
It can be argued that some of the small facilities would be closed under such a plan. That sounds like a negative part of the idea. But some of those schools are destined to close anyway, because they simply are becoming too expensive to operate with the growing costs.
Besides, studies have proven that schools with 400 to 800 students in their high schools are small enough to offer individual attention but large enough to offer adequate education curricular and extra curricular activities. That isn't always the case in some of the schools that have fewer than 200 students.
State-paid teachers and county school districts would level educational chances throughout the state, minimizing the effects of the infamous state aids formulas. It also would minimize questions about issues such as voucher and school choice programs. Making such drastic moves won't be popular in many respects. Teachers' unions won't be supportive because it will take away one some of their means of "comparison negotiating" - negotiating contracts based upon those settled in neighboring districts.
School administrators won't be supportive because it will eliminate many of their positions.
It could be argued that the moves could damage the bonds that schools have in rural communities. Some even would question whether one of the nation's top educational systems could be compromised.
The fact is that both of those things will happen if education and legislative leaders don't take leadership roles and make such drastic measures. The moves may not make great improvements in Wisconsin public education, but they at least could save the quality of education.
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