Ann Arbor Parents for Schools

This article was published in the Other Voices series of op-ed columns by the Ann Arbor News on Sunday, June 14, 2009. The version posted on the Mlive.com web site is available here.

The school budget news from Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and other communities in Washtenaw County is disturbing, and for good reason. School officials say that in the next two years we will all be driving over the edge of a “funding cliff” that threatens to injure our public schools for years to come. Some school districts are on the brink of failure, while others are having to cut teaching staff for the first time in recent memory. The depth of the coming crisis varies for each district, but the crisis is coming just the same. The question is, should we try to do something about it? Should we the people, the taxpayers, be worried?

The answer should be a resounding “YES!”

[Cross-posted from Michigan Parents for Schools]
The Senate Fiscal Agency has published estimates of the impact of cuts included in the Senate’s school aid budget bill, with detail for each district and public school academy (charter school) in the state. To get a copy of the full document, you can find it here.

As part of our Project Washtenaw effort, we’d like to highlight some of the potential consequences to districts in the Washtenaw ISD. The WISD includes districts with a wide range of characteristics, so the impact here can say a lot about what is happening state wide.

Top district officials held open public meetings last week to talk about school funding and the AAPS budget.

Update: A copy of the district’s presentation, and a place to submit questions online, can be found on the AAPS web site.

Attendance was modest in the extreme, and details of any potential cuts were few, but it was a good opportunity to explain to citizens what has been happening with school funding and where the district finds itself today. Even before the Governor’s proposed budget cuts (see story on MIPFS site soon), the AAPS was projecting a deficit of nearly $6 million on a budget of $185 million that would continue the current level of services. While the Governor’s proposed $59 per pupil cut (nearly $1 million in Ann Arbor’s case) is probably moot because of the Federal stimulus funding, the district may still face another $60 per pupil cut in state funding in a separate provision that only applies to higher-spending districts.

Disagreements reflect broader splits over school finance

At a special study session tonight, AAPS Superintendent Todd Roberts and Deputy Superintendent Robert Allen gave a preliminary briefing on the school system’s 2009-10 budget. Good news was in short supply, though progress has been made on several fronts and Federal stimulus money may yet come through to help schools. But, absent Federal action, the district’s leadership is projecting a budget deficit of just under $6 million for next year. Without any other changes, the projected trend continues with a $8.74 million deficit in 2010-11 and an even $12 million deficit in 2011-12. They need to close the gap and will be looking for community involvement in making the hard choices.

Wondering what you can do right now to help keep Ann Arbor’s public schools the kind of place where you want to send your kids? We have a few ideas… Feel free to pass this along!

In the discussions that followed the Ann Arbor News’ series on teacher pay, a particularly useful contribution was made by AAPS teacher, AAEA activist (and contributor to this site) Brit Satchwell. His two-part series of op-ed pieces in the News give an overview from an educator’s perspective, and in Satchwell’s case, the perspective of someone who has been fighting for school funding for a long time. At base, he makes a case that nearly everything we want out of our schools, including efficiency, circles back around to adequate and stable funding.

Regardless of what you think of it, the recent series in the Ann Arbor News on salary levels for teachers and other school employees has broken open a topic that has to be addressed as we work to build community support for our schools. There are a lot of misunderstandings, myths and suspicions that surround the topic of how much our teachers are paid, and these things really need to see the light of day.

There are a number of ways to cope with the funding crisis our schools find themselves in, and one way is to come together as a community and help support important programs with private donations. The AAPS Education Foundation is just starting a major initiative to expand their fundraising and granting capacity, with the aim of making significant contributions to the curriculum at all levels of the public schools. They say their aim is to “turn taxpayers into philanthropists.” Since we have so little control over public funding for our public schools, entities like the Ed Foundation can come to play an important role in taking the fate of our schools back into our own hands.

An important topic at our June 12 meeting was what we all as a community can do to help the schools through this crisis. If options for raising money with taxes are extremely limited, what kind of impact can we have by volunteering or making donations? Will it be enough?

“Comment from a teacher: [funding from the] AAPS Education Foundation is a great way to give teachers a morale boost.”

“What opportunities are available from PTO and other organizations to subsidize public education?”

Some of the questions raised at our June 12 meeting took different paths to the same topic: is the system broken? Are too many kids falling through the cracks? And what can we do about it? We did not get to address these questions at the meeting, so I invite everyone to weigh in on these issues.

“How can you expect parents, teachers, and the community to continue to support and not give up on a school system, which seems to be giving up on our kids. For example, fewer electives at middle school, bigger class sizes across the board. These are items that decrease the effectiveness of our children’s education.”