There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Residents of affluent school districts in Kansas have sued to overturn state rules that limit their ability to raise taxes and increase school spending. “Kansas is one of a handful of states that limit how much money local school districts can raise from property taxes—a restriction to ensure a rough parity in spending across the state,” according to this source. “Lawyers for Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback noted that parents can spend as much as they want on their children's education through private tutors. But courts in Kansas and across the U.S. have repeatedly held that states have an obligation to ensure equity—or at least, get as close as possible—at public schools…The state's position has drawn strong support from parents and school administrators in poor districts across Kansas.”
While only a handful of states have the same limitations as Kansas, most states have much more equal school financing than New York. In many southern states, in fact, school districts cover entire counties while in the Midwest states cover a much larger part of the school bill. Tabulations of school spending inequality that I have read, ironically, always have the true Blue States of the Northeast and West coasts with the most unequal school funding, and the Red States with the least. Perhaps that explains “liberal guilt.” The liberals are guilty, and in the past used to feel that way.
Measures to advance school funding equity are not even proposed in New York, let alone enacted. Fifteen years ago school spending was quite low by U.S. standards in New York City, but very high in the rest of the state, in part because the state redistributed educational resources away from New York City. Through a school funding formula that provided the city with a much lower share of state school aid (later including STAR) than its share of public school children (or its residents’ share of state tax payments), through such expedients as a formula that counted each NYC school child as less than one child.
The Campaign for Fiscal Equity, however, believed it was politically infeasible to actually propose fiscal equity. It was accused of advancing a “Robin Hood agenda” as it was, and the New York State Association of School Boards (representing schools outside New York City) and the United Federation of Teachers (the union that tries to negotiate more money for the city’s teachers in exchange for less teaching) were its co-plaintiffs. The judges ruled that the City of New York was a co-defendant, not a plaintiff.
So rather than more equal state aid (so at least state school funding didn’t make the city’s schools worse off) or some limits on the excess spending elsewhere, CFE sued for and negotiated more spending everywhere. The New York City schools now have high spending per student by national standards, even with a cost of living adjustment factored in. The high spending schools in the rest of the state are spending even more. I’d bet New York City’s share of state school aid (including STAR) has been cut, so city taxpayers are (net) paying for some of that excess spending elsewhere. And whereas NYC teachers were allowed to retire at age 62 after 30 years of work and paying 3 percent of their salary into the pensions when the CFE lawsuit started, after three pension enhancements the existing teachers are now paying just 2 percent of their salaries into the pensions after gaining 10 years seniority, and retiring at 55 after 25 years of work. (New teachers, whom the city will have to compete to hire in the future, are worse off – and will probably be worse off still very soon).
And to pay for this, the city’s schools are about to be re-destroyed.
I had been shocked to find out that just as the state school formula redistributed state aid away from New York City’s poor children, so New York City had an internal formula that led to higher spending in schools with affluent children than in schools with poor children. The reason is that teachers could go where they wanted, and the money to pay for them went with them, so while the schools with affluent children got motivated veterans, the schools with poor children got a rotating group of novices along with unfireable incompetents no one else wanted. When Bloomberg (after waiting several years) proposed a school funding formula that would require the veterans to be more evenly distributed among schools, the UFT opposed it. So did the mis-named Campaign for Fiscal Equity.
There have been a series of property tax caps proposed for New York, but none like the one in Kansas. All would limit property tax increases compared with those when the cap was enacted, not levels overall, keeping school spending low where it was low and high where it was high. (In contrast with the days when former Governor Pataki first proposed such a cap, however, there is virtually nowhere left in New York where school spending is low – just high and sky-high). None of those proposed caps took the existing level of spending into account.
As someone who is actually in favor of fiscal equity, there are all types of proposals I would make that none of the players in New York would consider. Two examples.
- Capping school spending per child at one-third higher than the national average, with an adjustment for the cost of living Downstate. A dollar of state aid (or STAR aid) would be taken away for every extra dollar spent over the cap. A minimum could be imposed too.
- And, eliminating school district property taxes, and having counties set tax rates, collect the taxes, and distribute them to school districts on a per-child basis. This would shift the competition from who could spend the most money to who could spend money the most effectively and induce the most parental involvement. And it would put the spending level decision in the hands of officials charged with balancing priorities rather than just advancing one of them.
There is a broader lesson here. The whole “big government small government” debate would mostly go away if there was equal government. Those who want “cuts” would be singing a different tune if everyone would be cut, not just someone else (like the poor). And those who want more spending would be singing a different tune if they too would have their taxes increased to pay for it and not just someone else (like the rich). And with regard to senior benefits, in my view, if we can’t do it for everyone into the future, then we shouldn’t do it for anyone today.
A limit on future property tax increases? That’s closing the barn door after the horse has left, isn’t it? Over the past 20 years, local government employment has fallen in New York City but it has risen by 130,000 in the rest of the state, with much of the increase in the schools. (Newly rebenchmarked annual data should be out in early March). But then, the public schools in the rest of the state are “economic development” not just schools, right Mr. Skelos?
But let’s return to that article. Having lived in the middle of country for a couple of years (in Oklahoma, in my last two years of high school, after my parents had to move for my Dad to take a job in the deep 1970s recession), I can tell you that things are not as snobby out there. You don’t have the same divide between people with different educational backgrounds that you do here. You many not have as much tolerance of racial, ethnic and lifestyle diversity (though that is changing), but there is much less classism. And you see it in the school funding.
The superintendent of schools in Dodge City, Kan., a lower-income district, joined the legal effort to block the parents' lawsuit. “Even with the current cap, he said, wealthy districts can offer students more extras because they don't need to spend as much on such basic services as after-school tutoring for children who are behind in English because they were raised speaking a different language at home. If richer suburban districts were allowed to widen their financial advantages…‘those who have, will have more.’ His students, he said, may never be able to catch up.”
Here in New York, those who already had more retirement were allowed to widen their retirement advantages. And as a result, even with higher taxes and spending, the New York City schools will never be able to catch up. And no one will even talk about it.