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Click Here For Equity News Archives Email bhaig@execpc.com to receive every new issue. In this issue: The
Joint Committee on Finance has concluded its public hearings on the state budget
for 2001-03. At every hearing, speakers told committee members about numerous
problems with the way our schools are funded. The complaints included: ·
Unequal treatment of students and taxpayers ·
Revenue limits ·
Lack of funding for special education, SAGE, and
bilingual/bicultural programs ·
Financing for the Milwaukee Parental Choice and Charter
School Programs. After
the Peshtigo hearing, both co-chairs called for major changes in the school
finance provisions. Sen. John Gard
(R-Peshtigo) said, “We have to redo the budget.
We have to make incredible changes.” Sen. Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee)
said, “This budget is an orphan…We almost have to start at the very
beginning of the process.” Burke
also has said, “…We have a better chance of making meaningful change now
than we have had for many years.” He
gave these reasons: ·
The court has established a new standard for a sound basic
education ·
The new standard recognizes the legitimacy of targeting
additional support to students with additional needs ·
The legislature must act to prevent a federal court from
stepping as it has in New York. Burke
went on to say, “…we have an opportunity to make real progress.
Our movement is at a critical moment.
We need to seize the moment.” The
process of redoing the budget is now underway.
Legislators from both political parties have shown significant support
for some or all of AEF’s proposals. Burke
and Rep. Tom Sykora (R-Chippewa Falls) have taken the lead in drafting our
proposal as a single bill and gathering support for it.
That draft, LRB-2360/2, is posted on our website (www.waef.net).
Another
bill being considered this term by the legislature is sponsored by Sen. Mike
Ellis (R-Neenah), which we’ve summarized on page 2. Both the Burke/Sykora and Ellis bills: ·
Respond to the new educational standard set by the Supreme
Court. ·
Meet the legislative responsibility to provide an equal
opportunity for a sound basic education so that every child can succeed
personally and economically. ·
Provide additional funds to meet the additional needs of
three populations identified in the standard as likely to need additional help
in order to succeed. ·
Spread the tax burden more fairly. The Burke/Sykora bill
provides equal access to money but leaves the amount to the local school board.
The Ellis bill provides equal funds up to $8100/pupil and an equal tax
burden for that amount but does not equalize
above it. Urge
your legislators to cosponsor LRB-2360/2 and support its provisions.
Discuss it with them NOW – we really have a chance to make it happen
during this legislative period. If you’re unsure how to contact your
legislator or what to say call me at 877-353-4755. ¨ In July 2000 the
Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the current school aid formula is constitutional.
In the court decision, the justices established a standard for education
that states, “Wisconsin students have a fundamental right to an equal
opportunity for a sound basic education. A
sound basic education is one that will equip students for their roles as
citizens and enable them to succeed economically and personally.”
The court also noted, “An
equal opportunity for a sound basic education acknowledges and takes into
account districts with disproportionate numbers of disabled students,
economically disadvantaged students, and students with limited English language
skills.” State Senator Mike Ellis
(R-Neenah) says he believes the court intends for the legislature to take the
new standard and define it. Ellis
is introducing a proposal that revises the school finance system to assure that
every child has an equal educational opportunity. Ellis addresses the first
part of the standard in his plan with a basic grant of $8,100 for each student,
which he says is sufficient to provide a basic education to each individual
student in Wisconsin. The amount
would be automatically adjusted each year to respond to inflation. Ellis’s plan focuses on
special needs students through a weighted pupil count.
He says, “Weighting the disability levels and providing the additional
funding will assist schools in covering the costs of providing special education
and related services to disables students.
This will give disabled students an equal opportunity for a sound basic
education. It’s more responsive
to population and cost changes over time than the current system.” One of the most important
factors of the Ellis plan is that it is fair to taxpayers.
A statewide local property tax to fund schools would mean every taxpayer
in the state pays the same rate. This
equal rate will fund the basic grant and the weighted categories.
Revenue controls would not be eliminated, but would change through a
mathematical formula. Ellis also addresses the
issue of facilities building and improvements.
Because of the difficulty some districts have in passing referendums to
make necessary improvements to their schools or to just keep the buildings they
have safe, he proposes “fairness in facilities.” This proposal will create a
statewide school facilities building commission that would rank building
projects based on need. The
emphasis for ranking would be on education and safety.
The funding for the projects would be based on an equalized aid formula.
State aids would come from a different and separate GPR appropriation
than school aids. School districts whose
equalized value per member is $100,000 or less would be aided for debt services
costs at a rate of 90%, while districts whose equalized value per member is
$400,000 or greater would be aided for debt service costs at a rate of 10%.
A sliding scale would determine the aid for districts that fall between
those values. The portion of debt service not aided by the state would be raised
locally through a local school property tax.
Ellis’ goal is to
“truly equalize Wisconsin’s school aid distribution formula to guarantee an
equal education opportunity to every child in Wisconsin. This is more than just a goal it is a constitutional
responsibility,” he says. These elements are
certainly worth reviewing.¨ Weighty Matters: Providing a Way To Equalize Access To State and Local Revenue Wisconsin’s
school finance system is replete with examples of property wealthy school
districts that are able to provide more public funds to invest in the education
of their children than less wealthy districts are able to provide.
To make matters worse, the wealthy high spending districts are often able
to provide that higher level of funding with a lower property tax rate than a
poorer district. For example, the 1999-2000 issue of
the Department of Public Instruction’s Basic Facts indicates that Gibraltar
was able to raise $10,350 per pupil, but had to levy a property tax rate of only
$3.51 per thousand of valuation. At
the same time, Peshtigo had to levy a tax rate nearly three times as high
($10.31/M) in order to raise only three-fourths ($7,731) as much for the
education of its children. While such a variation is tolerable
for purely local functions, it is never appropriate for a state function.
And public K-12 education is a state responsibility under our
constitution. Consider the other school system
for which the state is responsible, the University of Wisconsin.
We would never tolerate a state university system that required a student
from Peshtigo to pay three times the tuition as a student from Gibraltar and
invested only 75% as much to educate that Peshtigo student.
Yet that is the result of our current K-12 school finance system. Fair System One way to make our system fairer
would be to create a state system and provide exactly the same amount of funds
for every child. Such a system,
however, would reduce our level of local control over school district budgets.
A fairer system would be one that
provides equal access to state and local revenues by requiring that the property
tax rate be directly and proportionately related to the amount of state and
local funds invested to educate a child, no matter where that child lives. This type of school finance system,
which provides equal access to state and local revenues, would fulfill our
constitutional responsibility. Our
new educational standard requires us to provide all of our children with an
equal opportunity for a sound basic education, which will equip them for their
roles as citizens and enable them to succeed economically and personally.
And it would retain local control. New Standard In setting the new standard, the
Wisconsin Supreme Court identified three populations of students (disabled
students, economically disadvantaged students and students with limited English
language skills) that are likely to need additional help in order to succeed in
school. While the Court merely
required that they be taken into account, it seemed clear that additional funds
must be provided to meet their additional needs.
The most appropriate way to provide
those additional funds would be by adding those funds to the base on which the
school finance system is built, as this would assure an annual increase in those
funds. One way to accomplish that
is to provide a pupil weighting system, which reflects the cost of meeting the
additional needs of those students. A weighting system would provide
that the amount of funds to meet both basic and additional needs would increase
with inflation. If that amount were
set at the appropriate level, the days of cutting regular education programs to
fund special education would be over. ¨
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