UW-Madison Study Shows Impact of Walker’s Destructive Education Policies

University of Wisconsin-­Madison

ELPA Policy Brief

May 2012

Making Matters Worse: School Funding,
Achievement Gaps and Poverty under Wisconsin Act 32

 

By James Shaw and Carolyn Kelley

The 2011-­‐13 Wisconsin biennial budget (Act 32) reduced state aid to school districts by $792 million. This budget reduction follows a reduction of $284 million in the 2009-­‐11 biennial budget, reducing overall state aid to public schools by more than a billion dollars.

In addition to the reduction in general aid, Act 32 reduced the revenue limit in Wisconsin school districts by 5.5%, which is equivalent to an overall reduction in taxing authority of $1.6 billion in addition to the $792 million reduction in state aid. The lowered revenue cap requires that 241 of the state’s 424 school districts reduce school property taxes, exacerbating the impact of state budget cuts.ⁱ

Wisconsin boasts the highest high school graduation rates, the third highest ACT scores, the highest Advanced Placement success percentage of any Midwestern state, and high rates of highly qualified teachers.ⁱⁱ At the same time, the state has some of the largest achievement gaps for poor and minority students, and struggles to provide adequate funding for all school districts.

By analyzing school district budgeted expenditures in the 30 highest and 30 lowest poverty districts in the state for 2011-­‐12,ⁱⁱⁱ this study examines the impact of Wisconsin Act 32 on education funding, teacher quality, student learning, and property taxpayers. Budget data collected by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction represent the best currently available estimates of the impact of Act 32 on district expenditures.

Financial Impact of Act 32

Wisconsin state school aids are designed to equalize revenues among school districts with high and low tax capacity. In 2010-­‐11, the thirty highest poverty districts in Wisconsin received average state revenue per member of $7,237.55 compared to $3,361.39 for the thirty low poverty districts.

State budget cuts hit high poverty districts the hardest. Analysis of district budget data shows that compared with the 2010-­‐11 budget year, high poverty districts lost $702.97 in average state revenue per member while low poverty districts lost $318.70 in average state revenue per member.

Because high poverty districts are larger, the resulting share of budget decrease from state aid cuts for the 30 highest poverty districts was $88,452,606 ($703 per student times 127,842 students) compared to a loss of only $20,299,915 ($319 per student times 63,696 students) for the 30 lowest poverty districts.

High poverty districts have less state revenue to support the needs of children, and taxpayers in high poverty districts pay taxes at increasingly higher rates. In 2009­‐- 1 0 the total equalized property value per member in high poverty districts was $426,937.90. In low poverty districts the equalized property value per member was $944,333.95. Low poverty districts have more than the twice the equalized property value or tax base per member than high poverty districts.

Prior to the reductions in State revenue contained in the Wisconsin 2011-­‐13 biennial budget, the average mill rate ($10.94) for the 2010-­‐11 school year budget in high poverty districts was 29% higher than in low poverty districts ($8.56).

After the passage of the Wisconsin State Budget and reductions in State revenue for school districts, the average 2011 -­‐12 mill rate ($11.08) in high poverty districts is 32% higher than the average mill rate ($8.39) in low poverty districts.

The average mill rate increased 14 cents per thousand dollars of property value or 1.4% ($10.94 to $11.08) in high poverty school districts; and decreased 16 cents per thousand or 1.8% ($8.56 to $8.39) in low poverty school districts.

Reductions in employee compensation hit high poverty districts the hardest. Act 1 0 limits collective bargaining rights for public employees and reduces total compensation by making employees responsible for paying a larger portion of health care and retirement benefits. Under Act 10 reductions in state aid for public education are offset by reductions in public school employee compensation and/or a reduction in the workforce. For cuts in employee compensation to absorb the total $431 million reduction in state aid to school districts in 2011-­‐12, total compensation for each school employee would have to be reduced by $3941. Because state revenue reductions are more than twice as large in high poverty districts, compensation reductions must be more than twice as large, $6436 per employee, compared to low poverty districts, $2768, to offset reductions in revenues.

These reductions adversely impact high poverty districts. Even without the added burden of absorbing larger cuts to employee compensation, recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers is more challenging in high poverty districts. iv

Reductions in the size of the workforce hit high poverty districts hardest. The state biennial budget reduces state aid by $431 million in the first year and $361 million in the second. Using average teacher compensation as a proxy for average public school employee compensation and without considering the Act 10 mandated reductions in employee compensation, a reduction of 5.4% of the public school workforce or 5,448 school employees would be needed to offset the $431 million reduction in state aid for the 2011-­‐12 school year.

Because state revenue is reduced more in high poverty districts than in low poverty districts, to offset the budget cuts, the workforce must be reduced 8.2% in high poverty districts and only 3.5% in low poverty districts. These cuts would increase class size, particularly in high poverty districts. Large class sizes have been shown to have a particularly negative impact on student achievement for the low income and minority students served by high poverty districts.^v

In fact, recently released data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction show that the number of full-­‐time equivalent (FTE) public school total staff was reduced by 2357 or by 2.29% for the 2011-­‐12 school year. FTE public school staff was reduced by 877 or 5.71% in high poverty districts, and by 81 FTE staff or 1.13% in low poverty districts.^vi

Act 32 increases funding gaps for poor and minority students. The reality of budget cuts hits low-­‐income students harder, as reductions in state revenue are more than twice as large in high poverty school districts as in low poverty school districts. These reductions in state aid decrease the number of educators, and the compensation and incentives for recruiting and retaining high quality teachers, especially in high need districts. They reduce program support for the students most in need, while increasing class sizes and property taxes in high poverty school districts.

i Reschovsky, A. (2011). The Impact of property taxes of the governor’s 2011-­‐12 school funding proposals. Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs, La Follette School Working Paper No.

2011-­‐012.

ii Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. (2011, February 9). Wisconsin Advanced Placement Results Continue to Climb. News Release DPI-­‐NR 2011-­‐15B. Retrieved April 25, 2012 from dpi.wi.gov/eis/pdf/dpinr2011_15.pdf. Department of Education. (2011).

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. (2011, August 17). ACT Results Up In Wisconsin. News Release DPI-­‐NR 2011-­‐89 C. Retrieved April 25, 2012 from

dpi.wi.gov/eis/pdf/dpinr2011_89.pdf.

Balfanz, R., Bridgeland, J.M., Bruce, M. & Fox, J.H. (2012). Building a Grad Nation Report. Alliance for Excellent Education, America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, & Everyone Graduates Center at John Hopkins University. Retrieved April 25, 2012 from

http://www.americaspromise.org/.

iii Poverty is measured by the percent of students in the district qualifying for the Federal Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program.

iv Committee for Economic Development. (2009). Teacher Compensation and Teacher Quality: A statement of the policy and impact committee of the Committee for Economic Development. Washington D.C.: Committee for Economic Development.

6 Nye, B. A. (2000). Do the disadvantaged benefit more from small classes? Evidence from the Tennessee class size experiment. American Journal of Education, 109, 1-­25.

7 Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Annual 1202 School Staff Report, released April 18, 2012.

About the Authors

James J. Shaw and Carolyn Kelley are Wisconsin educators with expertise in school reform and school leadership development.

 

They are coauthors of the book, Learning First!: A School Leader’s Guide to Closing Achievement Gaps (2009).

Jim Shaw has been a Wisconsin educator for more than forty years. He is a former teacher, psychologist, school administrator, superintendent, and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-­‐Madison. He is also a former Wisconsin Superintendent of the Year and has been recognized by numerous organizations including the Public Policy Forum, the University of Wisconsin, the Saturn Corporation, the National Education Association, and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators for his leadership and contributions to public education at both the state and national level. He served most recently as the Superintendent of the Racine Unified School District.

Carolyn Kelley is a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-­‐Madison. She is an internationally recognized scholar in teacher compensation policy and strategic human resource management in schools. Professor Kelley is coauthor of the book Paying Teachers for What They and Do: New and Smarter Strategies to Improve Schools (with Allan Odden, 2001). She is a principal developer of the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) survey designed to promote school leadership and instructional practices that improve student learning.

For more information about the analysis presented in this ELPA Policy Brief, see the full paper and analysis, available on the ELPA website, elpa.education.wisc.edu.

Philadelphia Public Schools Being Dismantled

Who’s Killing Philly Public Schools?

Underfunded. Overburdened. About to be sold for scrap.

Daniel Denvir

City Paper

Evan M. Lopez and Neal Santos

Thomas Knudsen, the man who was temporarily put in charge of Philadelphia schools in January, was running late to last Monday’s press conference.

He had been delivering the same presentation all day, and doomsday rumors had already leaked: The plan he was about to lay out would dismantle the central office and parcel out school management, at least in part, to private companies.

Knudsen, paid $150,000 to hold the newly created post of Chief Recovery Officer through June, made a point of shaking the hand of every single reporter in the room before beginning his presentation. “Philadelphia public schools is not the school district,” he announced, laying out the five-year plan before the School Reform Commission (SRC). “There’s a redefinition, and we’ll get to that later.”

He got to it, using terms like “portfolios,” “modernization,” “right-sizing,” “entrepreneurialism” and “competition.” In short, it was a plan to shutter 40 schools next year, and an additional six every year thereafter until 2017. The remaining schools would be herded into “achievement networks” of 20 to 30 schools; public and private groups would compete to manage the networks. And the central office would be reduced to a skeleton crew of about 200. (About 1,000-plus positions existed in 2010, and district HQ has already eliminated more than a third of those.) Charter schools, the plan projects, would teach an estimated 40 percent of students by 2017.

The plan is bold — after all, closing just eight schools this year prompted an uproar. It’s also terrifying, says former Philadelphia School District superintendent David Hornbeck, considering the poor academic records and corruption at many charter schools. “What is being proposed, in effect, is ‘charterizing’ the whole district, when there is a lot of evidence that at best [charters] have no positive effect on student achievement, and there is a lot of evidence they cost more,” he tells City Paper. And “charters in many instances, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, have served private interests — sometimes of public officials.”

What’s even more startling than the drastic overhaul proposal is who engineered it. The plan was prepared with the assistance of Boston Consulting Group, a major global-business consultancy and school “right-sizing” mastermind. Boston’s previous accomplishments include recommending that New Orleans, which has decimated its teachers’ union and put most schools under charter control, create the exact same species of achievement networks in 2006. Last year, Boston also recommended that Australian education leaders close schools and cut spending. Indeed, Boston recommendations seem like a forgone conclusion: Their website touts “reform” hallmarks like evaluating student achievement through standardized tests and undermining traditional teacher certification.

It’s unclear what Boston Consulting Group actually did with the $1.5 million contract paid for by the William Penn Foundation, given their apparent cut-and-paste approach to tackling Philly’s school problems. Indeed, a former Boston employee has publicly described the company’s approach as merely “force-fit[ting] analysis to a conclusion” — in this case, the dismantling of the school system.

Another goal of Boston could be enriching its allies, or scoring them political victories. Former Boston executives and consultants now hold senior posts at charter-school networks like KIPP — which could well apply to manage a Philly achievement network — and Broad Center, an urban schools executive recruiter and trainer and a leading proponent of corporate-inspired reform.

Boston Consulting may describe itself as an innovator, with its private-sector-inspired experiments. But to longtime Philly public school watchers, this just looks like the latest attack on the city’s public education. Since 2001 — when the commonwealth swooped in and took over, but did not fix, the district — Philly schools have suffered the blatant mismanagement of former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, the corruption of charter operators, the unchecked greed of for-profit education companies and, in recent years, debilitating state budget cuts and a leadership vacuum from the district and the city. Each of these players has done damage; none has come close to addressing the district’s core problems of insufficient funding and widespread poverty among students and families. If Philly’s public school system does eventually crumble, all of these culprits will share a portion of the blame.

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Walker School Cuts Keep Coming

Budget means districts drop agriculture programs …. really

Governor Walker keeps telling us that the 2011-13 budget is working for school districts, but the evidence keeps mounting that it’s not OK for kids, their schools, or their communities.

For example, a recent column that ran in several state newspapers admits there will be changes to many of our school districts, including “31 ag programs that laid off teachers, reduced teaching hours, or were simply eliminated”─and that’s just this year. And remember, folks, this is in The Dairy State of all places.

To read the full article go to: (http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_d52eb1ec-a96d-5061-908b-ed31c5319397.html).

Wisconsin’s School Funding Cuts Among Highest in the Nation

School Funding in 2011-12 Compared with 2010-11

Some of the deepest reductions to K-12 formula funding since the onset of the recession have occurred in the past year, as federal aid intended to sustain state education spending has expired, rainy day funds have been exhausted, and states have resisted raising additional taxes to offset the need for cuts. After adjusting for inflation between last year (fiscal year 2011) and the current 2012 fiscal year:

• Almost all states for which data are available — 21 of the 24 states — have cut per student education funding.
• Seventeen of the 24 states have cut per student funding by more than two percent.
• Eleven of the 24 states have cut per student funding by more than five percent.
• Of the states surveyed, the three states that reduced per student funding the most since last year are Illinois, Texas, and Wisconsin. Illinois cut per student spending by 13 percent, while Ohio and Texas imposed cuts of about 10 percent.

These cuts are occurring at a time when schools face demands from parents, employers and civic leaders to bring more and more students to higher levels of academic proficiency, in large part because workers will increasingly need higher levels of educational attainment to thrive in the workforce.

Why This Happened

It is not just K-12 education that is being cut. States are cutting funding for higher education, for health care, for human services, and a range of other areas of spending.[5] States have enacted these cuts primarily because the recession caused state revenue to decline sharply as costs increased. In addition, the federal government has not offered additional emergency fiscal aid and few states raised new revenue this year.

• Revenues remain depressed. With unemployment still high and housing values still depressed, people have both less income and purchasing power. As a result, income and sales tax revenue — the main sources of revenue states use to fund education and other services — is still low. Of the 44 states that have released the necessary data, 36 project that they will have less state revenue in 2012 (after adjusting for inflation) than they did in fiscal year 2008, when the recession began. These states on average balanced their budgets based on fiscal year 2012 revenue projections that were seven percent lower than before the recession, after adjusting for inflation.[6] While state revenues are starting to improve across the country, the rate of growth is generally slow.
• Costs are rising. The cost of meeting people’s needs has increased since the recession began, due both to demographic changes and to the recession. In the upcoming 2011-12 school year, the U.S. Department of Education projects that there will be about 260,000 more K-12 students and another 1.5 million more public college and university students than in 2007-08, for example.[7] Some 5.6 million more people are projected to be eligible for subsidized health insurance through Medicaid in 2012 than were enrolled in 2008, as employers have cancelled their coverage and people have lost jobs and wages.[8]
• Emergency federal aid is mostly depleted.States used emergency fiscal relief from the federal government (including both education aid and other forms of state fiscal relief) to cover about one-third of their budget shortfalls through the 2011 fiscal year, which ended on June 30 in most states. Only about $6.7 billion in fiscal relief remains for the current 2012 fiscal year, a year in which states faced shortfalls totaling at least $103 billion. That is, the remaining fiscal relief covers less than seven percent of state budget shortfalls for the fiscal year that just began.Nearly all the aid remaining is explicitly targeted to education, but it is mostly depleted. For the current 2012 fiscal year only about $2 billion of the $39 billion in education aid under ARRA’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund remains, and only about $4 billion of the $10 billion from the Education Jobs Fund remains. In total, then, only about $6 billion or roughly 13 percent of the federal aid targeted explicitly to supporting general state education funding remains.[9] Since this education aid is intended to help states sustain both their K-12 systems and their higher education institutions, not all of the remaining education funds will go to K-12 schools.

  Not only is emergency federal aid largely depleted, federal policymakers are making state budget problems worse by deeply cutting the amount of ongoing federal funding to states. The recent debt limit deal likely will lead to well over half a trillion dollars in cuts in “non-security discretionary” funding over the next decade. Fully one-third of this category of federal spending flows through state governments in the form of funding for education, health care, human services, law enforcement, infrastructure, and other services that states and localities administer. Large cuts in federal funding to states would force states to make still-deeper cuts in their budgets. The cuts to state aid could start as soon as federal fiscal year 2012, which begins October 1, 2011.

  Congress could spare aid to states while taking all the required savings from purely federal areas of spending, like the FBI and the National Institutes for Health. But that’s extremely unlikely, since the resulting cuts in those areas would be prohibitively large.
  In addition, if the committee charged with recommending further deficit-reduction measures reaches agreement, the additional cuts likely will further reduce federal funding for states. If the committee fails to reach agreement, the automatic, across-the-board cuts that will occur will mean even deeper cuts to non-security discretionary funding.

• Few states raised new revenue this year. While more than 30 states raised revenue to help close their budget shortfalls earlier in the recession, this year few states raised new revenue; most depended entirely on spending cuts.

Superintendents Across Wisconsin: Walker’s “Education Budget” Hurts School Districts

New Wisconsin budget creates
fiscal obstacles for schools, kids

School District officials and parents from around the state met to let the public know that the state budget cuts are curtailing students’ opportunity to learn.

School board members, district administrators and parents from across the state gathered in Greenfield on Wednesday to speak about how the $1.6 billion education state budget cut impacts schools, families and communities. Their message was: “It’s not OK.”

According to Bruce Quinton, superintendent of the Pepin School District, Governor Scott Walker’s recent cuts are especially difficult after 18 years of school districts operating under state revenue limits.

“Given year after year of school funding reductions, educators are already working with larger classes, fewer materials and fewer programs and services for students. The most recent budget cuts make things worse, essentially handing the state’s budget deficit to all school districts and municipalities throughout the state. Our young people and our educators didn’t create this mess, but we will be the ones who pay for it.”

• Participant list
• See the press release
• About Opportunity to Learn
• DPI data on revenue limit cuts
• Media coverage
  • Ann-Elise Henzl – WUWM
  • Greenfield Patch
  • Erin Richards – Journal Sentinel blog

Companies Running School Cafeterias Under Eye of USDA

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s watchdog arm plans to look closely at whether the food-service-management companies running many school cafeterias are passing along all the discounts and rebates they receive from their suppliers to the districts that hire them.

The audit will begin in August, said Alison Decker, a lawyer in the USDA’s office of inspector general. It was triggered in part by a settlement between the New York state attorney general and Sodexo, one of several large companies in the business of running school cafeterias. Last July, Sodexo, a French company with its U.S. headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., agreed to pay $20 million to resolve allegations that it had over charged 21 school districts and the State University of New York system for some of the food provided to students.

New Jersey Supreme Court Decision: Right Wing Governor Must Pay $500 Million More to Urban/Poor Schools

Court Orders New Jersey to Increase Aid to Schools

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and WINNIE HU Published: May 24, 2011

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a major piece of Gov. Chris Christie’s cost-cutting was unconstitutional and ordered lawmakers to raise spending for poor, urban schools by $500 million next year, despite a state budget shortfall estimated at $10 billion.

The decision is a new milestone in the intertwined disputes over school financing, taxation and the role of the courts that have roiled the state’s politics since the 1970s. And those disputes remain; the ruling intensifies Mr. Christie’s running battles with the Supreme Court and the Legislature, and it will resonate in the coming negotiations to balance the budget, negotiate new contracts with state workers and rescue the government employee pension plans.

The majority in the 3-to-2 decision accused the state of willfully violating previous Supreme Court orders in the long-running school-aid case under review.

“Like anyone else, the state is not free to walk away from judicial orders enforcing constitutional obligations,” Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote in the ruling. She added that “the state made a conscious and calculated decision” to renege on the commitment it made two years ago, the last time the case, Abbott v. Burke, went before the court.

In response, Mr. Christie again cited school financing as the chief example of a liberal court run amok, which he vowed to remedy by choosing more conservative justices. Answering questions at a public forum in Cherry Hill, N.J., he said, “I’m going to appoint people who I believe understand their job, which is to interpret the law and not make law from the bench.”

MPS Cuts Compared to Onalaska, a Small Town Near LaCrosse Wisconsin

In Kids & Family Commentary OnMilwaukee.com

Cuts slash budgets beyond MPS, too

By Bobby Tanzilo Managing Editor Published March 26, 2011  Hills principal Curt Rees and some Onalaska students.

Of course, as a Milwaukee resident and taxpayer — and the dad of an MPS student, and a prospective one — the stress I feel over the current budget battle in Madison is focused on how the decimation of public school funding will affect my children, the children of my friends, neighbors and co-workers and all of the kids in the city.

But, communicating with Curt Rees — a principal in Onalaska, out near LaCrosse — is a good reminder that public schools across the state will feel the same pain. While the cuts affecting MPS are astronomical in comparison, that’s only because we have such a large district. In terms of percentage, MPS is not facing the largest cut.

In fact, according to a DPI spreadsheet that hypothesizes how the proposed budget would have affected districts this school year — had it been in effect — Onalaska would have seen cut of 10.3 percent. MPS would have lost 8 percent.

“Frustrated would be the first feeling that comes to mind in terms of the state budget,” Rees wrote to me in an email.

“Expectations continue to go up in terms of student achievement, but our resources are dwindling. I’ve been at my school (Northern Hills Elementary, which scores 8 out of 10 on GreatSchools.org) for 7 years and my site budget — which takes care of supplies, copy machine, professional development, building repairs, etc. — has never seen an increase. Our budget had been frozen for 6 years and then took a 10 percent cut last year to help make ends meet for the district.”

Rees says he worries most about what the cuts mean for the future of the institution of free public education for all American children.

“If people are allowed to use vouchers to go to any school they want, what will that do for the kids who need the most help, but don’t have knowledgable and resourceful parents to advocate for them? Maybe public schools will just be the place for the ‘leftover’ kids. I can’t ever see that as being a benefit for any part of society.

“I love reading about Thomas Jefferson’s push for a system of public education,” Rees continues. “He did so because he wanted every U.S. citizen to be skilled enough to care for themselves and to be learned enough to make good decisions while being a part of a democracy. Without a strong public ed system, will our citizens be able to do either of these?”

Onalaska School District has a three-year average enrollment of 2,861 and has a base revenue of $9.473 per student. Comparable numbers for MPS are 85,455 and $10,104. There are three elementary schools, one middle school, one high school and an early education center in the Onalaska district. At the start of this school year, MPS had 184 schools, including 118 elementary schools, 8 middle schools, 40 high schools and 18 schools with combined grades.

Luckily for the district, Rees says, Onalaska is bolstered by a very supportive community.

“Our parents are great about helping their kids be successful in school. Local businesses and groups are also great supporters of our schools. Our community passed a funding referendum (about five years ago) to allow us to remodel our oldest elementary school and then take care of several other capital projects in the district — HVAC, safety projects, parking lot repaving, etc.

“We also just passed a referendum on Feb. 15 to give us operating money to maintain the programs and people we already have in place, which have been very successful. But it seems like the state has not followed through on their end of the deal. We had the QEO (note: the QEO limits how much schools can raise as a means to limit spending) in place for 17 years to keep employee compensation down and the state was supposed to provide 2/3 of our funding. Compensation certainly stayed down, but the state funding kept shrinking and shrinking and looks to be outright chopped for this next budget cycle.”

So, even while Onalaska has a supportive community and has apparently followed the revenue rules, times have grown tighter and tighter due to state cuts. This latest round of proposed cuts puts further stress on the district’s finances. Rees says the big hurt will come the year after next in Onalaska.

According to the DPI, Onalaska faces a $2.4 million cut from the state in 2011-12 and $3.2 million the following year. The numbers are $71 million and $95 million in MPS.

“Because of our successful referendum, we’ll be OK this coming year in maintaining the status quo, but we had hoped that the state funding would be there so our local money could allow us to do another school remodel and allow us to take care of other capital needs that come up every 5-ish years.

“We’ve held this thing together with spit and duct tape for several years, but how long can that last? A school’s biggest assets are its teachers and staff. When the money is gone, positions will be eliminated, class sizes go up for kids, and then there are fewer class choices for them.”

Onalaska, we feel your pain.

Please Act: Don’t Allow the Further Demise of Public Education in Milwaukee

Dear Families, Students, Educators and Community:

Wisconsin families face economic hardships. Now their children’s educational future is in jeopardy. MPS is facing huge budget cuts. Many of our schools will lose valuable staff and programs.

Early reports from the MPS 2011-2012 school year budget process show many schools forced to eliminate art, gym, music, librarians and media specialists, program implementers, para-professionals and general aides, along with reducing hours, for many positions.  This year’s cuts seem to surpass what we have seen in the past.

Milwaukee Public Schools face a loss of funds from many directions:

• Title I ARRA funds – $35.9 million
• IDEA ARRA funds – $24.2 million
• School Improvement ARRA – $2.9 million
• Title IID ARRA funds – $2.1 million
• Education Jobs funds – $14.7 million
• Title I funds – $10 million, $3.5 million less to schools
• Title IID funds – $0.8 million
• School Improvement funds – $1.2 million
• Safe Schools/Healthy Students – $2.2 million
• Futures First – $0.8 million
• School operations – $13.6 million budget shortfall

Governor Scott Walker warns of significant cuts in state aid. For example, some Republican legislators want to eliminate K4 early childhood funding.

Money is being taken from schools that have already been cut to the bare bones. This is not a case of throwing money at a problem. This is a matter of what is mandated and guaranteed under the law of the State of Wisconsin. Wisconsin students are guaranteed a “sound basic education” which is a “fundamental right.”

The Wisconsin legislative statute, 121.02(L) (1997-98), sets clear standards for what is mandated to be taught to Wisconsin’s public school students. These mandates go far beyond the core curriculum to guarantee that all students receive instruction in physical education/health, art, music and have access to library resources.

This was reaffirmed in the Wisconsin Supreme Court 2000 majority position on school funding by Justice Patrick Crooks (Vincent v. Voight):

“We further hold that Wisconsin students have a fundamental right to an equal opportunity for a sound basic education. An equal opportunity for a sound basic education is one that will equip students for their roles as citizens and enable them to succeed economically and personally. The legislature has articulated a standard for equal opportunity for a sound basic education in Wis. Stat. §§ 118.30(lg)(a) and 121.02(L) (1997-98) as the opportunity for students to be proficient in mathematics, science, reading and writing, geography, and history, and for them to receive instruction in the arts and music, vocational training, social sciences, health, physical education and foreign language, in accordance with their age and aptitude.”

The cuts being forced on MPS abandon our students’ right to a “sound basic education.”

We must fight for our kids!

Sincerely,

Larry Miller-MPS School Board Director, District 5

MPS Funding and Voucher Funding

Milwaukee Public Schools: Funding Facts

For the 2010-2011 school-year it is estimated that MPS will receive $10,104 per student from basic (non-categorical aids) state and local property taxes. At that starting point, MPS receives approximately $6,852 per pupil from the state and $3,252 per pupil from local taxpayers.

MPS also receives additional “categorical” aids from the state that go to partially support costs associated with special education students, English language learners, transportation as well as SAGE, early childhood and other programs.

When state categorical funds are added to state basic funds, MPS will receive an estimated $8,100 per pupil from the state along with the $3,252 per pupil from local taxpayers.

In order to support federal programs such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) MPS also receives federal funding to provide support for all students in the city, public and non-public, who qualify for services.

The most recent figures provided by the Department of Public Instruction provide a breakdown of funding from the 2008-09 school year.

Table 1: Milwaukee Public Schools: Sources of Funds

Revenue Per Member Milwaukee 2008-09 Compared to Prior Years Summary – All School Types Combined
		Revenue	Revenue Per Member	Percent of Total
2008-09 (87137 members)	State	$630,646,879	$7,237	50.9%
	Federal	$289,397,605	$3,321	23.4%
	Local: Property Taxes	$287,778,700	$3,303	23.2%
	Other Local	$30,449,969	$349	2.5%
	Total Revenues	$1,238,273,153	$14,211	100.0%

Source: Department of Public Instruction, (most recent) audited figures.

Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Voucher Tax

Milwaukee Taxpayers and MPS Students are penalized under the present funding formula for the voucher program. In order to fund the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the state withheld over $50 million from Milwaukee Public Schools in 2010-11, roughly $600 per MPS student. State law puts the MPS Board in the position of having to either cut $50 million from MPS students or increase the local levy to fill in the gap. It is an unjust scenario that puts our students at risk and unduly burdens our property owners.

In 2010, the Voucher Tax nearly equaled the tax levied to support the Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Table 2:

Citywide Tax Levies – With Voucher Tax (Milwaukee Parental Choice Program)
As Currently Presented			With Voucher Tax
Levy by Unit of Government	2010 tax bill		Levy by Unit of Government	2010 tax bill
	In Millions			In Millions
Milwaukee Public Schools	$293.50		City of Milwaukee	$246.70
City of Milwaukee	$246.70		Milwaukee Public Schools	$243.29
Milwaukee County	$126.70		Milwaukee County	$126.70
MATC	$54.60		MATC	$54.60
Sewerage District (MMSD)	$41.10		Milwaukee Parental Choice Program	$50.21
State of Wisconsin	$5		Sewerage District (MMSD)	$41.10
			State of Wisconsin	$5
Total	$767.60			$767.60
(The Voucher Tax levy represents 17.1% of the total MPS levy.)

If the changes that are being proposed in the legislature come to pass without any changes to the MPCP funding structure, the Voucher Tax could increase dramatically from one year to the next.

Voucher advocates are now lobbying to eliminate the cap on vouchers and increase the funding to the voucher program. Eliminating the cap and increasing the funding will lead to state-wide tax increases that will even be greater for Milwaukee taxpayers.

If the funding for each voucher student is increased to $10,000, property taxes in Milwaukee will increase by $27.6 million dollars to $77 million dollars.

If the number of students in the voucher program increases from the present 20,000 to 25,000, at the present rate of funding, Milwaukee taxpayers will have an increase of $11.8 million to $61.9 million dollars.

If both occur (per pupil amount to $10,000 and an increase in enrollment to 25,000) Milwaukee taxpayers will pay an extra $39.4 million totaling almost $90 million dollars.

At present 21% of MPS students are designated special education. Less than 3% of voucher students are provided special education services. Special education services are very expensive and the state provided only 27% of that funding last year. In the coming school year it is predicted that federal funding will only provide 17% of the special education funding. This means the remaining 56% of special education services will be funded from MPS general funds.