The severe recession we’ve experienced in the last several years – yes, it’s really been that long – isn’t over. Or, at least, its effects are still with us.
While economists have announced that things are on the upswing as of last June, we all know better. Unemployment is still hovering above 10 percent in our county. Our nation is frighteningly deep in debt. Our state is looking at more severe cuts in services due to falling tax revenues. Locally, both the city of Sweet Home and School District 55 have had to make some gut-wrenching decisions to cut expenses.
The schools have taken the biggest hit thus far and it looks like there’s more to come.
Until now, the most obvious effects of the local cuts have been four furlough days, the closing of Crawfordsville School at the end of the year (which is also due to declining student numbers) and the loss of the School Resource Officer.
What’s next could be even more drastic, including potential closing of the Sweet Home pool; cuts in teachers, classroom assistants and other staff; more furlough days; a salary freeze or salary cuts; and elimination of programs that help struggling students at the high school and junior high and the elementary school Opportunity Room.
Or, Sweet Home could go to what other districts in the state have done or are considering: going to a four-day week.
All cuts are going to have negative effects, but some will affect the whole point of this operation – kids – more negatively than others.
When it becomes necessary to start red-lining, it would be better to make every effort to maintain programs that keep youngsters focused on education – things that might seem frivolous at first glance. We’ve said this before, but we’ll say it again: Classes and programs such as forestry, shop, athletics, art and music are the reasons some kids even go to school – particularly high school. They also provide kids opportunities to learn responsibility and commitment that, in many cases, they don’t learn very well at home. These, of course, are qualities that benefit the community – probably as much as the 3 R’s.
The pool is another plus for our district and shuttering it would have a dire effect for all ages, not just the school children.
So how do we pay for all of this? The district’s largest costs are personnel and that’s where cuts should start. The employee unions need to recognize that, at least for the time being, reductions (or freezes) in compensation or furlough days may be necessary to keep things moving. While pay cuts or staff reductions are not something we want, they may become necessary.
Though public school systems are subject to criticism for their inefficiencies and the kind of common-sense gridlock that is common to governmental organizations, we have to commend our district for being better than average, as reported on page 12 of today’s paper.
If you haven’t read it yet, Sweet Home is one of three districts in Oregon identified by the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, for getting the biggest bang for our bucks. In a nationwide study conducted by the center, Sweet Home, North Clackamas and Gladstone were the three highest-scoring districts in Oregon. That’s one of the reasons why we’re not hurting even more and we compliment our district for that.
One of the biggest problems for schools, however, especially well-managed districts like Sweet Home, is that so much of their operations are dictated by people who don’t live here – state and federal government officials. Though volume sometimes brings efficiency, that’s not necessarily true in government and certainly not always true in schools.
Gov. John Kitzhaber recently announced plans to consolidate control over all levels of education, from pre-kindergarten through college, in a single board that he would chair. Earlier he proposed consolidating school districts and Educational Service Districts as a way to generate cost savings to taxpayers.
The problem is that such efforts have already been tried and failed. As Portland-based free-market think tank Cascade Policy Institute has pointed out, when Kitzhaber was Senate president the number of school districts in Oregon fell from 277 to 198 between 1992 and 2001, thanks to a legislative mandate. What resulted was more central office administrators than before, a fact that is borne out by academic literature on the subject, according to Cascade researchers.
Increased local control of schools can solve many problems because the schools can adjust their approaches to the needs of the students. That’s one reason why charter schools are so attractive. The dictatorial influence of Washington and Salem are reduced as parents and staffers create schools that are cheaper to run, thanks to the fact that they are more locally controlled.
There are other ways that costs could be cut if the stringent Big Government regulations did not exist. Old-timers in our community can remember the days when students cleaned the classrooms and kids walked to school. Youngsters learned responsibility and, if you look at the school pictures from those days, few of them were overweight. Excess body fat was not a big problem when kids walked from Old Holley Road to the Long Street School (where the administration offices are located).
In Japan, a country that is more modern than the United States in many ways, and where overall educational achievement (at least on tests) far outstrips the U.S., most schools are still unheated and kids do the janitorial work.
The point is, we need to get creative and keep our focus on the objective – doing what’s good for kids – as these decisions are being made.
No school is perfect, but this is as much about power and control as it is about education.
So, before reliving the mistakes of the past, the governor and legislators might do well to consider what truly will reduce costs and improve educational outcomes — competition and local control. When students and parents are free to choose their schools, with money following the students, and local people making decisions on how to spend that money, power returns to the consumers, where it belongs, rather than to bureaucrats.