Wednesday, April 28, 2010

More from the WSJ

I have to at least give credit the WSJ for continuing to keep education front and center of their Sunday opinion section. This last Sunday, under the headline "Protect kids from cuts" the WSJ takes on the issue of closing the remaining Madison SD budget gap and editorializes for a pay freeze for teaching staff. Although the current budget situation probably makes reducing compensation for staff in one way or another inevitable, I don't think that devaluing the teaching profession can be construed as "Protecting kids". After all, the number one factor in educational outcomes is the placement of a highly qualified teacher in front of each class.

Attracting quality teachers means we have to be sure it is rewarding profession, so balancing the budget through reductions in teacher compensation is in the long term unsustainable. If the current situation was a one or two year problem then a freeze might serve as a bridge to recovery, and although I don't know the Madison situation I'm pretty sure their problems are similar to ours: shortfalls that extend year after year for the foreseeable future. The article notes that the Madison teachers receive the "standard" 1% raise this year. This year that seems inappropriate, but the fact that the same 1% is the “standard” every year since 1993 is also a problem.

According to USGovernementSpending.com primary and secondary education spending in WI has shrunk by 9% as a portion of GDP from 1998 to 2008- the education "Slice of the Pie" has been shrinking, and its the ultimate source of our budget problem, not the current recession.

We have to face it: reducing the money spent on education reduces the ability to provide services to kids. Let's not pretend we can "Protect kids" while doing it.

1 comment:

Chan Stroman said...

I was curious about the GDP % stat cited above. When I looked at the #s for Wisconsin from usgovernmentspending.com (thanks for the pointer to this terrific resource, although I think there are a couple of years in its data for WI that have decimal points off by one place), I get 6.54% for 1998 and 6.55% for 2008, and the percentages don't really bump up or down more than .4% or so (if that) over the years of data shown.

I'm not from your district, but enjoy your blog very much. Regards!