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THROWING MORE MONEY AT PUBLIC EDUCATION DOESN’T NECESSARILY TRANSLATE INTO BETTER EDUCATION! |
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Welcome to the Silicon Valley Property Taxpayers’ Association - Throwing More Money at Public Education portion of our Web Site. School
and community college administrators often make the emotionally
appealing argument our kids’ education is suffering because of a
shortage of money. But the facts
reveal there is no direct correlation between the two.
For instance, take Faria
Elementary School in Cupertino, California; one of the Cupertino
Union School District’s fine elementary schools.
In November of 2003 the San Jose Mercury Newspaper reported
the following: “Last month...for the second time in three years...Faria ranked at the top of the 7,000-plus State schools that recorded scores in the Academic Performance Index [‘the API’], the State’s measuring stick for school performance.” In 2003 Faria scored 981 out of a possible 1,000 points on the State’s API, and in 2004 it became one of only two elementary schools in the State [the second was Millikin in the Santa Clara Unified School District] whose students garnered perfect scores on the State’s API! These achievements are remarkable considering the fact that “because of a quirk in funding regulations that dates back to the inception of Proposition 13, State funding per student for Cupertino Union schools is among the lowest in California,” and the bottom 25% of public schools in Santa Clara County [in fact, it “receives the lowest level of State funding per student out of all 33 school districts in Santa Clara County”]! They are even more remarkable considering the fact “most students [use a] spoken...language other than English at home!” Or
what about Northwood Elementary School in the Berryessa
[San Jose] Union School District: “the
little school that could!” Again
according to the San Jose Mercury Newspaper, “with trampled ivy and
plain white walls Northwood Elementary is a nondescript-looking school.
[Yet] inside the classroom...something special is
happening...[it] is one of 33 public schools in California – and one
of only two elementary schools in Santa Clara County – to be named a
federal Blue
Ribbon school this year for exceeding its goals under the No Child
Left Behind law...A beautiful little school with great API
scores...What’s unusual is that Northwood did this as a Title I school
– a school where more than 40 percent of its students [come] from
low-income families [a quarter...are Hispanic, and nearly 60 percent are
Asian and Filipino];” and, with even less
public funding than Faria Elementary School! Or what about the teachings of the State of Washington Education Association? According to Marsha Richards [Director of the Education Reform Center for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (a public policy research organization) located in Olympia, Washington], “for years we’ve been told the answer to our education crisis is more money, more programs for special student populations, smaller class sizes, teachers with higher college degrees, more preschool programs, etc. [In Washington] we believed these promises, and...successfully implemented these reforms. [Therefore] in the past 10 years: •
Total education spending per-pupil [has] increased
by 16.5% in inflation-adjusted dollars... • Per-pupil spending for special-education programs [has] increased [by] 21% [inflation adjusted]; •
The number of children enrolled in the state’s low-income preschool
program rose [by 81.6%] from...1991 to...2004 [and] per-child spending
rose [by 166%]... • The number of students per classroom teacher in K-12 [has] decreased [by over 9%] from 19.6 to 17.8; • The portion of teachers with master’s degrees or above [has] increased from 39% to 56%. Now, sponsors of [a new referendum] Initiative 884 are asking for a 15.4% increase in the state sales tax so they can spend an additional billion dollars a year doing more of the same. These
‘solutions’ have been tried for decades — and they have failed.
Expanding them won’t make them work...We expect
more services from our public schools and teachers than ever before, but
that doesn’t always mean we should. If
we want schools and teachers to deliver quality education, we can’t
also demand...they be mom, dad, nurse, therapist and babysitter.
No amount of money will
make it possible... Does
it cost money to provide a good education?
Of course. But how we spend that money is just as important as how much.
Right now We
cannot afford to mistakenly or lazily assume, yet
again, that if we just throw a little (or in this case a lot)
more money at our education problem, it will be solved.
The cost to taxpayers and students is too high.” We
have a simple litmus test we suggest voters apply to any school or community college district’s request for more
money at local homeowners’ ONLY
expense: if its Superintendent or Chancellor receives an annual salary
of $150,000 or more before employee benefits and taxes [which boosts
his/her real cost to taxpayers to well over $200,000 annually], then it
has lost its right to ask for
more! If you agree that compared to other similarly situated schools or community colleges in Santa Clara County the particular school or community college district’s new tax measure which has brought you to this web site is not doing a good enough job with the financial resources the public has provided; and that it fails our suggested litmus test; we urge you to VOTE NO! Should you have questions or comments, please address them to Silicon Valley Property Taxpayers’ Association at: |
