Art Rainwater's Monthly Column: Current School Finance System Needs to Change: "Advanced Courses May

Madison Schools Superintendent Art Rainwater:

School districts across Wisconsin are preparing to begin the yearly ritual of reducing services to their students. Under the current revenue caps there really is no choice for most of us. For most districts the easy choices were made long ago. After twelve years of revenue caps there are only choices left that harm our children.

At the same time that educational research is showing us more effective ways to ensure that all children learn, inadequate school finance systems are ensuring that we do not have the resources to implement what we know.

Or, the choice this year for some may be the reduction of the advanced courses (emphasis added) that allow our state's students to be competitive with students globally, thus limiting the availability of the highly educated work force that our state needs to be competitive.

There are many budget posts on this site, including those that discuss health care costs, reading recovery, business services, state funding, local property taxes and a different point of view on school funding. Personally, for many reasons, I don't see the current situation, modest annual budget growth, changing much. The more we yearn for additional state and federal dollars, the more we become dependent upon the political spaghetti associated with that type of funding. Having said all that, I do agree that the current model is a mess. I just don't see it getting any better. We simply need to spend our annual $329M in the most effective, productive way possible.

I'm glad that Art is putting his words on the web! I look forward to more such publications.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 6, 2006 10:11 AM
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