Feb 15 2009
Closing Schools and Fiscal Responsibility
Our school board is considering closing schools. This is not unusual in our current climate. School boards all over the country are looking at numbers, tax bases, economic woes, and they are making hard choices. I talked to a friend of mine who teaches in Phoenix, and word is that they are looking at a large (shockingly large! It’s hard to believe the numbers he quoted me) reduction of their professional and paraprofessional staff.
The truth is, our board has put off making this decision for half a decade. We are an urban district (In a formerly large town which was, prior to that, a medium-sized town. It’s a town that still has a hard time thinking of itself as an urban). But the hard truth is white flight is occuring; families that move in who can afford it are moving to the more suburban school districts that surround our city. Even though we have one pocket of semi-suburban neighborhoods still within our district’s boundaries where we’ve build schools in the past two years to relieve overcrowding, most of the rest of the district is losing students. We have upwards of 4,000 fewer students now than we did a decade ago. We have a few half-empty schools and quite a few schools that are not half-empty, but are getting there quickly. Still, prior boards have avoided making the hard choices. Here is an editorial from our local paper which speaks in favor of making these hard choices. We’ve had public meetings and asked for information from groups of stakeholders, employee groups, parents, staff. They have enough information — really they have a ton of information. Here is another article about the information they have. They started with some basic presuppositions, and a collection of data about school usage and programs in the various schools. All schools (not just those on the list) were asked to evaluate and list their own strengths and areas to improve. Then a consultant was brought in, and all of this information was tabulated in a plan that they took to employee groups, employee leaders, and to the public. They actually asked and solicited information, and they listened. The plan was changed and each change was posted (currently the district has Draft 18 on their site). At each public meeting they asked focus groups to record and give input about various options. Still, we have people crying that this decision is being made too fast.
The school board is caught between doing doing what is fiscally responsible and largely unpopular, and putting off the decision or doing some small measure that pretends to solve the problem. It’s a tough position. I don’t envy the tough spot in which they sit. The problem with a true democracy is that people won’t make the tough decisions. Self interest gets in the way. That’s why our founding fathers made this country a democratically elected republic. That’s essentially what a school board is. A democratically elected republic presumes that those elected to the board will have the guts to make the hard and even unpopular choices.
I think we have a good board. Current information suggests that all but one member recognize the difficulty, and are willing do the tough but necessary job. I hope they make the hard choices. If they don’t make these choices, we will be talking about a fiscal crisis in a year or two. Decisions made in a crisis are not likely to be decisions that work to improve student achievement.
2 responses so far
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If schools are closed then it may cause a problem to students. If the decisions are not taken properly then if effects students. So it is better to take the proper decisions.
Thank you for the comment John. I do not at all disagree that closing schools will cause a problem for the students and will affect their lives greatly. Closing schools will likely have a negative impact on the neighborhoods and will in all likelihood further the decline of these neighborhoods. As the Gazette editorial (referenced in blog entry) stated, however, it is not the school board’s responsiblility to fight urban decay. It is the School Board’s responsibility to make fiscally responsible decisons. They (really prior boards) have procrastinated, and now it is time to make some closures — not because the decision is easy, but because the demand for efficiency outweighs the need for small, intimate schools. You state, “they must make this decision properly.” And indeed they must, however, they have taken time, hired consultants, invited public participation, and studied this issue. Further study is not going to bring further insight at this point. Now it is simply time to swallow hard and make the tough choices. In this case the choices are indeed difficult, nevertheless, I have confidence that our board will do so.