Winners and losers in state education budget

Reaction of educators will be sigh of relief, not a victory cheer

When the Legislature’s budget committee approved a 58-point resolution on kindergarten through 12th-grade education issues last Monday, it all but settled what is going to happen in Wisconsin schools on a lot of fronts for the next two years. The decision came on a straight-line party vote (12 Republicans in favor, 4 Democrats opposed).

The document will shape Wisconsin education for the next two years. So what’s in it?

The biggest deal remains this: Each student getting publicly funded education across Wisconsin will bring that child’s school roughly $200 more this year than was the case a year ago. Another $200 or so will be added in the 2018-’19 school year.

This is not bad from the standpoint of schools — in fact, it’s the best deal they’ve gotten in eight years and holding on to that $200, proposed by both Gov. Scott Walker and Tony Evers, state superintendent of public instruction, was a top priority for school leaders statewide.

But the reaction of educators can be envisioned as a sigh of a relief more than as a victory cheer. In many schools, the $200 increase means that reductions in service will not be as big as they might have been. The increase is fairly modest by long-term standards in Wisconsin school spending. Nonetheless, we’ll call school spending a winner.

In fact, a lot of the winners and losers fall in the lukewarm category. Some examples:

Winner: Mental health needs of students. Schools of all kinds are facing increased numbers of students with mental health issues. The budget adds several million dollars for school-based programs and collaborations with mental health organizations. This generally drew bipartisan support. But the amount is not so big, given the urgency of the need. It’s a step in the right direction, but only a step.

Loser: Early childhood programs. There’s not much in the budget that deals with pre-school programs at a time when recognition of their importance has grown. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos created a bipartisan task force on urban schools and one of its key recommendations last year was that early childhood programs were a good investment. But that isn’t reflected in the budget.

Winner: “Personal electronic computing devices” for ninthgraders. The budget calls for giving schools (private as well as public) $125 for each ninthgrader in the 2018-’19 school year for such devices. Vos was a strong proponent of this. Many schools have such tablets or handheld devices now. Some use them well. Some don’t. Will this $9.2 million appropriation have much real impact?

Winner: Lifetime licenses for teachers and principals. In the name of improving teacher quality, Wisconsin overhauled its practices 15 to 20 years ago so that licenses had to be renewed more often and teachers had to somehow show they were improving their work. I don’t know any evidence this actually paid off. So we will return generally to giving new teachers three-year licenses and, if they make it through that period, lifetime licenses. To what, if any, impact on teacher quality? Good question.

Loser and winner: Rural schools. There are a few things in the budget that could help many rural schools, such as $1 million over two years for programs aimed at attracting teachers. There is also somewhat more help for combining some grades across district lines or consolidating services.

But Walker’s proposal to increase “sparsity aid,” payments to boost districts where there are fewer than 10 students per square mile, was cut back, for a net saving from what Walker proposed of $9.1 million. Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said that change would cost schools in his district alone more than $2 million.

Winner: Low-revenue districts. One of the least defensible aspects of Wisconsin’s complex school funding system is that many districts are locked into caps on spending that are much lower than caps in other districts. Why? Because they were low-spending districts in the 1990s, when the system was created. The budget raises caps for the lowest-spending districts step by step over the next six years. You can think of the cost of doing this as a trade-off for reduced “sparsity aid.” A modest victory — the caps for those districts in 2022’23 will still be below the current statewide average.

Winner: Statewide availability of vouchers. Democrats were vehement in opposition to anything helping private schools, but the steps approved could have been more dramatic. The best example: To the disappointment of some voucher advocates, the Republicans on the committee voted to allow households with income up to 220% of the federal poverty table to apply for vouchers in the statewide program. That’s up from 185% now, but well below the 300% figure for Milwaukee and Racine vouchers. The statewide program will grow, but not by as much as 300% would have allowed.

Winner: Milwaukee Public Schools. Overall, this budget doesn’t change much for MPS or the Milwaukee school scene as a whole. From the MPS standpoint, that’s a victory, compared to changes for the worse.

Still to come: Vouchers statewide for special education students. It’s one issue that was left unsettled and is on the agenda for action on Tuesday. If eligibility is expanded, that would be a big deal.

Loser: Let me nominate “big, bold thinking.” What is in this budget that speaks to building the quality of teaching? What speaks to raising expectations? Or to doing something constructive about schools where student success is rare? With the exception of $1 million over two years for support of a “Wisconsin Reading Corps” for tutoring kids, what is there to deal with the huge need for improved reading success for children statewide?

Maybe everyone is tired of big, bold thinking and “education reform.” Maybe folks want an incremental document that largely continues with what we’ve got.

If so, that’s what they’ve got.