The State of Alachua County Public Schools: Budget Cuts and Change
The state of the public schools has become a familiar burden that is carried by the community.
When Florida Gov. Rick Scott released his sweeping budget cuts in February and passed definitive Senate bills in March, it appeared that public education would suffer some of the deepest wounds. So Floridians gathered to write, march, and shout in defense of their schools.
Alachua County Awake the State Rally March 8, 2011
But this is not a new controversy.
Back in 1998 more than 70 percent of voters in Florida emphasized the value of education when they amended the Florida Constitution to make funding a high quality system of public schools the state’s “paramount duty.”
Historically, problems in Florida’s public schools have overshadowed the progress they have made in academic standards and school accountability, which recently earned the state a fifth place ranking nationally, according to the annual “Quality Counts” report by Education Week. For years Florida’s public schools have had been ranked among the worst in the country in per-pupil funding and graduation rates.
When compared to other school districts Alachua County public schools have fared well, but the steady decrease in state funding and recent state legislation has created several new challenges for the upcoming school years.
See a timeline of state funding and budget cuts in Alachua County Public Schools.Timeline: Funding in Alachua County Public Schools
The author compiled data for timeline from the following sources:The Florida Department of Education’s Financial Profiles of Florida School Districts 2009-2010 Financial Data Statistical Report (released February 2011)
Citizen’s for Strong Schools
AP Tallahassee Bureau
The Gainesville Sun
Gov. Scott originally proposed to make up for a nearly $4 billion shortfall by reducing funds for school districts by $1.75 billion, cutting per-student school funding by 10 percent ($703), which would have translated into a loss of almost $19 million for Alachua County Public Schools in the upcoming school year. The original budget also suggested that these cuts to education could be offset by forcing teachers to pay 5 percent of their salary toward the cost of their pensions.
However, from the latest update from the annual legislative session it seems as if the cuts to education won’t be as devastating as once suggested.
Although the agreement is not final, teachers will only be required to pay 3 percent a year toward the cost of their pensions, and the House and Senate reached a deal on public school spending that will probably finalize in a 6.5 percent cut in per-student funding.
This year’s session has been a sensitive topic for many people who care about the quality of education in Alachua County for several reasons.
Firstly, since the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year funding has dropped almost $400 per pupil, according to Jackie Johnson, public information officer for the School Board of Alachua County. In the past three years state funding in Alachua County schools has decreased by 27 percent, which translated in $1300 less per pupil.
As a product of the Alachua County public school system, Mark McGriff, a local businessman, now has three sons who attend public schools in the district. In the face of steady budget cuts, Mark McGriff’s confidence in the public school system in Alachua County spurred him to form Citizens for Strong Schools in 2008, a political action committee that was formed to support a one mill increase in property taxes for the public school system.
For the past three years Citizens for Strong Schools has been pumping life-sustaining dollars into Alachua County public schools through the One Mil Initiative, which saved school nurses and restored elementary art and music when they were loss along with magnet and elective programs in middle and high schools. However, this lifeline will end in June 2013 unless voters choose to rescue the schools for a second time around.
Secondly, Gov. Scott’s proposal calls for several changes in standardized testing and teacher pay. The School Board of Alachua County has been required to develop new tests for every subject, which would cover a wide variety of electives. If Senate bill 736, the Teacher Quality bill, is passed, by 2014 an end-of-the-course exam will be developed in every course taught and the scores will tie 50 percent of teacher evaluation directly to a single test score.
Karen McCann, president of the Alachua County Education Association, takes the issues teachers face to heart because of an incident she had 11 years ago that reawakened her faith in the importance of unions. While teaching at Gainesville High School, she was given incorrect information that she later passed onto a student. When the student’s parents got involved, she had union backing.
McCann organized the local “Awake the State” and her eyes light up when she talks about people fighting for their rights and freedom as professionals.
“You (the state) are not going to tell me how to do my job. I’m a teacher, and I’m good at my job. I know what I’m doing. Don’t come from the outside and start dictating to how I’m going to do my job and how I’m going to get paid…because I’m the professional, not you,” McCann said.
According to Jackie Johnson, public information officer for Alachua County public schools, these annual tests will have to be high-stakes exams.
“Unless the students have some skin in the game, for example, why would they bother to try to do well on these tests, if their only incentive is whether or not their teacher gets a raise? So the impact of more, and more, and more high stakes testing on our students is something I’m not sure the legislature is contemplating,” Johnson said.
Finally, the Alachua County school district is concerned because no money has been set aside for creating and implementing the tests and teacher merit pay, and no research has been done to show that merit pay is effective in education.
“You’re talking about a plan that is not fully formed. The state acknowledges that it hasn’t developed these tests, it doesn’t know where they’re going to come from, it doesn’t have the money to pay for this program. So there are so many unknowns, so many strings attached for something that may not work,” Johnson said.
