Make school funding a priority

Every month, I attend a school board meeting. Nearly every week, I walk the halls of at least one school in School District 6. I’ve watched children dancing, reading, laughing, drawing, singing. I’ve watched high school students play their hearts out in band practice. I’ve watched students discuss literature with remarkable maturity.

Watching education happen is inspiring. I am reminded of something said by John Dewey, an education reformer whose works are still influencing education in America today. He said, “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself.”

Sitting through those school board meetings, a person can’t help but get depressed. School District 6 officials continually throw around certain numbers. Numbers like $500,000. That’s the amount of money the school district needs to continue educating area children in the best way possible that the district isn’t going to get.

It’s baffling to me, really, how little state legislators seem to value education.

Education is the gateway to a better life. Education can take a person like my father, who grew up in rural Nebraska and didn’t have indoor plumbing until he was 11, and turn him into a president of a healthcare management company that employs more than 2,000 people. Education gives a person wings.

So why isn’t Montana doing a better job funding education? A poll recently commissioned by the Montana School Boards Association and the Montana Rural Education Association found that Montana voters support increased funding for K-12 education. Of those people polled, 59 percent indicated they support elected officials who support increased funding, compared to 19 percent who support officials who would freeze funding and just 6 percent who support officials who would reduce funding.

Since 1972, the percentage of state funding of schools has steadily dropped. Will voters allow this to continue?

At the most recent school board meeting, I witnessed an inspiring thing. I watched as a number of parents in the audience, whose children currently attend Canyon Elementary, gave impassioned speeches about why the district should keep the elementary school open. I watched as the superintendent and school board members explained to the parents in attendance that the last thing the school board wants to do is shut the school down.

But their hands are tied by state funding. It just doesn’t make fiscal sense to keep a school operating to the tune of $1 million a year when less than 100 students are benefitting.

And not only is the school board looking at shutting Canyon Elementary down at the end of the school year, there are likely to be drastic cuts in the other schools. Entire sports programs cut. Teachers let go. Textbooks not purchased.

It’s extracurricular programs that set American schools apart. In other countries, education is rote memorization of facts. That doesn’t encourage students to explore and create. It doesn’t encourage students to learn who they are as people.

Yes, legislators in Montana are required to balance the budget. It’s only good business practice. But that balancing shouldn’t be at the expense of education. The state should not be allowed to pull surplus monies from schools (and local taxpayers) and place it in the state’s general fund. It should remain in a school district’s account, as “rainy day” money. The Montana School Boards Association has written a bill it hopes will pass in the upcoming legislative session to make this right.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s newly released 2011 budget is a bright patch in the current economic woes. Bob Vogel, the director for governmental relations at the Montana School Boards Association writes: “The governor has proposed to make up for the lost federal revenue after this biennium is over and has proposed a conservative inflationary adjustment on the Basic and per ANB entitlements for the next two years. The challenge will be holding onto the funding levels proposed by the governor in a session that is expected to be fairly contentious. Additionally, even if the governor’s budget is funded by the 2011 Legislature, schools will still face cuts, but those cuts will not be as large as what was originally forecast before the governor released his budget.”

Legislators should also have the courage to tax when taxation is necessary. This is an unpopular opinion, but it’s the simple truth. You want good roads and good schools? You’re going to pay taxes. Isn’t the future of our children worth that cost?