Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403050004
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The state's highest court isn't likely to be sympathetic to pleas for a judge-ordered settlement of the issue. But should it be, Virginia's budget will be thrown into far greater disarray than it would if federal retirees win a $400 million refund.
The school plaintiffs argue that a system of public education in which one school district can spend more than $8,000 per student while another spends less than $4,000 is unfair on its face and must be reformed, either by the legislature or the courts. They also raise such issues as differences in teacher pay and course offerings.
But the bottom line in their case is that poor or fiscally stressed localities, such as Halifax County and Petersburg, are inherently incapable of funding an adequate system of public education. That inherent incapability, they say, represents a clear violation of Section 1 of Article VIII of the state Constitution: "The General Assembly shall provide for a system of free public ... schools for all children ... and shall seek to ensure that an educational program of high quality is established and continually maintained."
Highly appropriate to this case is the celebrated maxim: "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." Truly, from the mountain of data on public education in Virginia, you can make almost any case that suits your bias.
Looking at data for 1991-92, the staff of the Senate Finance Committee found that nine school districts, primarily in Northern Virginia, outspent all others by a wide margin. It might also be noted they do it mainly from local funds. But the study also found per-pupil expenditures in 75 percent of all districts within $1,000 of each other.
Focusing on teacher salaries, the committee found the average for Northern Virginia was $38,260 - about 10 percent higher than the District of Columbia and about 10 percent lower than the District's Maryland suburbs. The Southside Virginia regional average was $28,100 - 5 percent more than the border region of North Carolina. In Southwest Virginia, the regional average was $28,686 - more than bordering areas in West Virginia and Tennessee, less than in Kentucky.
The committee performed a valuable service by equating teacher salaries to median family incomes. Interestingly, the highest salaries represented a smaller percentage of local family income while the lowest salaries often exceeded it.
While too much could be made of this little exercise, the average teacher's salary in Fairfax of $40,837 represented only 63 percent of median family income in Fairfax. In Buchanan County, the average salary of $25,708 represented 114 percent of median family income in that county. All salaries are exclusive of fringe-benefit costs.
Such vast differences in local circumstance clearly make it impossible to attempt a statewide standard for teacher compensation.
Course offerings are another matter. You can certainly make a case that a student attending a high school with only 39 courses has less opportunity than one able to choose from an educational smorgasbord containing everything from basket-weaving to conversational Japanese.
But exactly how a school system such as Highland County - which graduates fewer than 25 students a year - is supposed to offer 100 courses is far from clear. The media technology certainly exists to bring the best of everything to every school in the state, but the educrats have shown little interest in developing its vast potential.
Just as students in states such as Utah and South Dakota, where education outlays rank near the bottom, outperform those in states spending far more, some of Virginia's "poorest" school districts obtain outstanding results. Of course, many of those students have something money can't buy: family pride and parental fidelity to the ideals of education. As the Senate Finance Committee concluded, "The best evidence available is that there is not a clear, linear relationship between spending and achievement."
Critics may be on sounder ground when they argue that many localities simply don't have the tax base to sustain a good system of public education and will never catch up. But the existing formula for dispensing state dollars takes that into account. In Halifax County, for example, the state pays 57 percent of the cost of school operations while it pays only 13 percent in Alexandria.
We might also examine what Alexandria does to help itself. In 1991, Alexandria imposed a real-estate tax of $1.04 per $100 of value while Halifax levied only 42 cents. Where Alexandria imposed a substantial gross receipts tax on professional practices and retail merchants, Halifax imposed none.
In the 1994-96 biennium, total expenditures on public education in Virginia will be roughly $12 billion, or some $5,400 per student, per year. The money the assembly has included to address the disparity issue represents less than 1 percent of that, and politics has dictated that even the richest districts get a small piece.
While it sensibly targets reducing the pupil-teacher ratio in the primary grades serving the highest number of poor children, we might note that we already employ one "instructional" person for every 16 students in the whole system.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB