Last week, I discussed vouchers and charter schools as ineffective options for school reform. This week, it is imperative that I focus on districts and funding. Alabama has a two-fold problem: gerrymandering and inadequate funding. Gerrymandering unequally distributes funding to public schools. What’s more, our funding procedures for school districts are regressive and outdated.
What is gerrymandering? It is the political process of manipulating a district to ensure only a certain group is represented. When placed in the context of schools, this process is incredibly dangerous.
While gerrymandering a district to ensure a political outcome does not accurately represent the views of an entire area, gerrymandering a school district narrows the funding options open to schools and ultimately restricts the opportunities of its students. Alabama is notorious for gerrymandering school districts and restricting the flow of funds open to certain schools and areas.
Consider the Jefferson and Shelby County areas comprising Birmingham, Ala. You have very wealthy, well-funded, and ethnically homogeneous suburban schools, and very poor, ill-funded, and ethnically homogeneous schools. This occurs because not only do the wealthier communities have more property tax, but a generous abundance of sales tax coming from the more commercial areas surrounding their neighborhoods. As Alabama receives most of its educational funding from sales taxes, the lack of commercial business and thus taxes in poor areas results in less funding for the schools. Additionally, consider the burden placed on rural schools where taxes from sales are few and far between. In a county where you have to drive 30-45 minutes to the grocery store, how much sense does it make it base school funding off of sales taxes?
Why does any of this matter? Our education system is funded based on property taxes and sales taxes. Most states in the Union fund their education system from property taxes, and this tax is adjusted to reflect changes in costs, inflation, etc. Alabama funds it’s education system primarily off of sales taxes, and our property tax has not changed since 1901. Moreover, in a lean economy, people buy fewer goods, further decreasing the tax intake for public schools. This begs the question – how does funding affect schools’ operation?
You cannot expect schools to improve when you continuously cut or refuse to properly fund education. Less funding means less books, less computers, second rate libraries, under-qualified staff, few guidance counselors, and most importantly, neglected students. Real education reform requires parents, teachers, administrators and legislators to ask questions about how classrooms operate.
We must ask ourselves: How can a student learn in a classroom of 35 students of varying ability with 45 minutes of instructional time? How can a student practice their math skills when they cannot take their textbook home? How can they complete a research paper when their library does not have the appropriate texts or enough computers to accommodate their class? How can a teacher design an effective science lesson without the proper materials and labs?
How do you deal with students who cannot afford books for their English class or materials for their other classes? How can schools offer advanced courses when there are few or no teachers with the proper certification? How can a student get enough access to a guidance counselor for testing and college applications when the counselor must advise 500 or more other students?
These are the essential questions which must be answered when we speak of school reform. We must know what happens inside of the classroom and how the particulars of the school’s daily operation impact student success. I fail entirely to see how vouchers or charter schools answer any of these questions. Vouchers are convenient cop-outs for real reform, and charter schools serve no real purpose beyond making people feel better and straining already tight local school budgets.
Alabama is one of the few states with a trust fund specifically for funding education. Why is it then, that we continually face this problem? Before we take vouchers and disavow public education, it is time that we pay close attention to the actions of our legislators. They have been abusing the public trust for 112 years.
John Speer is a graduate student in secondary education. His column runs weekly.
