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Some public school systems still financially secure
Students raise their hands in class
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Kai Ryssdal: Today is the first day of school in a lot of places around the country. Thanks to state budget cuts, kids are coming back to shorter school years, fewer teachers and no more art or music classes. But there are some exceptions.
As Marketplace's Amy Scott reports from the Education Desk at WYPR in Baltimore.
Children talking in a school hallway
Amy Scott: At a Baltimore elementary school, first graders file in in uniform. Unlike students at many schools opening around the country, these kids won't face drastic budget cuts.
Bill Reinhard: I don't think I've ever heard a school system say we have plenty of money don't send me any more, but...
Bill Reinhard is with the Maryland State Department of Education. He says the state has made barely any cuts to K through 12 education this year. Maryland's economy has held up fairly well during the recession. And state law requires that local districts spend at least as much this school year as they did last year.
Reinhard says that's helped place Maryland's among the top public schools systems in the country.
Reinhard: We certainly have great kids, we have great teachers, we have great administrators. But the money helps.
And Maryland is in line for more money, including $250 million from the Obama Administration's Race to the Top contest. Maryland isn't the only exception to state budget troubles.
Allen Odden teaches education policy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He says school budgets have held up in Wyoming and South Dakota, thanks to their thriving oil, gas and coal businesses. And he says Arkansas is doing well, too.
Allen Odden: It's a fairly mixed economy. They have insurance companies. They have Wal-Mart, they have Tyson Chicken.
Arkansas also has a law guaranteeing adequate school funding, but money doesn't guarantee success. Odden says as Wyoming has spent more on education, student performance has flattened or dropped.
In Baltimore, I'm Amy Scott for Marketplace.
This week the Newman Grove district is going to publish its property tax asking for 2011. (I'm the reporter for the local weekly paper.) And the result? Tax next year will decrease, because the actual expenditures will decrease slightly. The mill rate will be about $0.88 per $100 valuation; almost 17 cents short of Nebraska's $1.05 cap. Most neighboring districts are cutting desperately to stay under the cap.
How did they do it? Mostly very prudent planning. The school managed to put aside some money during flush times, budgeting always began with an assumption of no increase in property valuations, and the budget always assumes a cut in state aid. In the last year two teaching positions were merged into other teaching slots; other than that I can't find massive layoffs.
Things might change next year, and if the economy plunges again then all bets are off. But at least for now I know of one district that seems to be weathering the financial storm.
Your source said that as Wyoming has spent more on education, performance hasn't improved. This has been the general trend *everywhere* in this country for the last thirty years and more. Education unions and schools have gone to the taxpayers time after time claiming a "crisis" in education and demanding more money, and they usually get it, but we have nothing to show for it except the technology and the buildings themselves; the quality of public education in this country has continually worsened as the money we spend on it has skyrocketed.
