Yesterday’s JLARC
report, Efficiency and Effectiveness of K-12 Spending, which provides
substantive ammunition for the budget battle ahead all began with a meeting
President Gruber and I had with Senator Dick Saslaw on November 26, 2012. Meg and I were following up on an item on the
2013 VEA Legislative Agenda adopted by the VEA Board in August of 2012. The item read:
JLARC
Study of the SOQ - Substantial
revisions to the SOQ are needed as a consequence of a number of factors not
limited to the following:
v
The
continued failure of the General Assembly to fund revisions proposed by the
Board of education,
v
The
revised graduation requirements,
v
The
more vigorous Standards of Learning tests, and
v
The
many arbitrary, budget-driven cuts to SOQ funding made in the 2009 through 2012
legislative sessions.
It is time for the
Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to conduct a study of how the SOQ
may be revised and adequately funded to meet the Standards of Learning and
Standards of Accreditation.
Senator Saslaw agreed to be our champion, and the General
Assembly passed SJ328 in 2013.
Despite the fact that the House weakened the language of the
VEA drafted resolution considerably, yesterday’s report clearly delineates the
fact that Virginia is disinvesting in the education of her children. While I urge you to read the report, or at
least the summary, here are some highlights:
· Divisions have more students per teacher, and report that larger class sizes hinder instructional effectiveness.
· Teacher salaries have remained level, but teachers pay more for their benefits …. Take-home pay likely decreased for many teachers.
· More than 80% of divisions report challenges to recruitment and retention of teachers.
RECOMMENDATION 1 The
General Assembly may wish to consider amending § 22.1-23 of the Code of
Virginia to require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to track teacher
turnover and report annually to the General Assembly and governor the numbers
of and most common reasons for teacher turnover (Chapter 3, page 25).
OPTION 1 The General
Assembly could amend § 2.2-1204 of the Code of Virginia to allow school
division employees to participate in the state employee health plan (Chapter 2,
page 11).
This JLARC report is also remarkable for what it doesn’t
say. For example, it says that the
“Local share of K-12 funds” ranks 11th in the nation. It
does not say that the state share ranks 41st! Is there some reason they left out that
statistic? Could it be politics and cowardice?
Because the House watered down the wording of the VEA/Saslaw
resolution, this report has no bold recommendations, but even with the weaker
language imposed by the House, the report could not paper over a marked
disinvestment in the education of the next generation. The underlying truth survives, and now we
must use the information in this report to fight for more funding for public
education in the session ahead.
Let’s make the idea VEA hatched in 2012 pay off in the
session ahead!