Possible Budget Cuts for Dickson County Schools
“Budget cuts” seem to be the new dirty words around school. The topic was enough to cause a stir at the recent ( June 22nd) County Commissioners Budget meeting. No body likes being the bad guy. No body likes being the one to suggest it might be a good idea to cut our education dollars. I understand there are those who currently feel like a dart board in all of this. But what is a county to do?
I was present at the June 15th meeting when Schools Director Johnny Chandler gave a school budget report to the county commissioners, at which time he was told to see what he could do to slash the budget another 2.5 percent. Our current budget allows for over $7,000 dollars to be spent to educate each student. We already spend $1000 less per student than other counties, which adds up to about $8 million less in total spending per year. Now the school board is being asked to cut another $2 million from the budget. Chandler did say that some cuts may have to come from personnel but that he had no desire to cut teacher’s wages.
My question is this: are we being frugal or frivolous? Are we getting a quality education for less money because we are wise in our spending, or are we throwing good money after bad while we are watching our students struggle to meet the national standards?
During the budget report Chandler shared the TN Dept. Of Education report card for Dickson County schools*. And while K- 8 got great grades, the high schools didn’t fair as well. And yet this point went unrecognized. If I remember correctly, my daddy rewarded me when my grades were good but when I brought home bad grades, I was punished. Not that I am saying that the DOE should be punished, but what should we do when our high schools are reporting below average grades compared to the rest of the state in Math and Sciences? Comparing our ACT scores to the national averages ** we fell behind 43 states in Math and behind 39 in Sciences. Is this the cost of spending less money per student?
The average private school spends nearly half what each public school spends to educate one student***, and home schoolers spend pennies on the dollar. The fact is that public, private and home schooled students still attend the same colleges. At the meeting on the 15th, county commissioner Gray said she had been an educator for many years and she remembered doing quite well with 40 something students per class, a globe, dictionary and some encyclopedias. And although we all recognize that we need to stay up to date in this technological world for our students to compete, we also may need to rethink just where our money is being spent if our students are still not getting the education they deserve.
Many areas of our county spending are being examined for budget cuts (see The Story On The Dickson County Library). According to Mayor Stone’s office, at this time, 35 percent of the people of Dickson County are paying property taxes while the other 65 percent do not yet still enjoy the same privileges ( i.e. schools, library, etc.). Maybe there is a way to change that uneven balance.
One of the reasons for the desired cut in school spending is to allow the county a way to pay back some of the debt services that include school projects from the late 1990s. We are using what we haven’t paid for while outgrowing it at the same time.
Perhaps there is a way to address the quality of our spending as we are examining the quantity.
*http://edu.reportcard.state.tn.us/pls/apex/f?p=200:30:904206927823463::NO:::
***$10,000 per student in taxpayer dollars? Ouch.http://www.reformk12.com/archives/000174.nclk
**National comparison chart http://www.act.org/news/data/08/states.html
