Gov. Pawlenty’s educational reform lacks logic

01/20/2006

Paul Boblett, Outing, Minn.

The Pilot-Independent
Walker, MN
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 04:04:45 PM

I see the strategy, but I fail to see the logic in Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s proposal for $112 million to be diverted from administration to the classroom as something that will significantly help the children enrolled in the Minnesota public school system.

On the surface, the [idea] of an additional $112 million to the classrooms of the state seems commendable. But the general public and legislators need to realize is that $112 million equates to only 1.88 percent of the total current expenditures for Minnesota schools for one year, and this amount doesn’t include transportation or food service.

This is not “new money” for the system, only a redirection of funding that already exists. Seventy percent of funding in the classroom for every district is his goal — but by looking at the spreadsheet available on the Minnesota Department of Education Web site (http://education.state.mn.us/mde /index.html), one can plainly see that most school districts already hover around that magic number.

What makes the Governor’s proposed legislation even more ridiculous is that the individual school districts can recode their numbers to make it appear that 70 percent is actually going to the classrooms, even when that might not be the case. To the districts, it is nothing but a coding/numbers game.

In his Jan. 9 press release Pawlenty states, “After dramatically increasing K-12 funding last legislative session, we want to ensure that those dollars are well spent. Requiring at least 70 percent of funding be dedicated to the classroom is common sense — taxpayers expect state funding to be targeted on children, not bureaucracies.”

According to his strategy, if the individual districts are not 70 percent classroom-fund compliant, they must come up with a three-year plan to reach that number. For someone who is supposedly an education reformist, where is the penalty for non-compliance? Where is the beef? Three years to recode some numbers? I could probably do it in three hours!

He said that the state “dramatically increased K-12 funding,” but I don’t hear of any districts say that they believe they have the needed funds to educate the future work force. Conversely, many districts are in financial peril while the state and federal governments continue to mandate programs then continually fail to provide adequate funds to support them. Going back several years on this subject, we see the individual states being owed hundreds of millions of dollars. Where is the strategy in politicians choosing to ignore this?

Pawlenty’s strategy in choosing to bring this to our legislators is confounding; he is only playing a numbers game — in other words, politics as usual — that will require more accounting and therefore more administrative expense.

Many schools in our area are already 70 percent compliant: Walker-Hackensack-Akeley (71.8), Crosby-Ironton (71.5) and Grand Rapids (71.2) to name a few. Even the financially-strapped and stripped-down Minneapolis districts (71.4) are compliant, but they also closed several schools in the past few years. The Northland Area School District is at 69.1 percent and will have no problem getting to 70 percent if this becomes law, as that .9 percent equals approximately $47,500. But I ask again, where is the penalty for non-compliance?

Will our governor’s strategy for his rumored vice-presidential aspirations continue to hinge on this type of bluster without backbone rhetoric? If you don’t plan on supporting him, you should hope he continues this strategy, as his true colors will then become even more visible.

We need our legislators to look at the state of Minnesota’s educational system and hope they see that this plan does nothing for the children. It is simply window dressing. It also needs to be reiterated that this potentially diverted money is not “additional funding.” In other words, his strategy is simply robbing Peter to pay Paul, which has been the strategy for our governor throughout his tenure in office. One look back at his “No New Taxes” pledge will back that up, as more localized taxes and fees have trickled down than ever before.

If Pawlenty really wants to champion educational reform, he needs to come up with a strategy to hold our state and federal governments accountable for every mandated program, both past and present, which have not been funded properly.

No increase in funding equals no meaningful strategy or real change.

Paul Boblett, Outing, Minn.