There are a couple of common tactics used to prevent necessary financial and structural reforms. Here’s how to spot them, and to fight them.
There are a couple of common tactics used to prevent necessary financial and structural reforms. Here’s how to spot them, and to fight them.
T he recent uproar over the proposed school-budget cuts in Greenwich, Conn., particularly in foreign languages and physical education, underscores a common tactic employed by superintendents across the nation. This strategic maneuver of targeting cherished programs serves as a diversion from more significant financial issues within the budget and the district’s collective-bargaining agreement with the teachers’ union.
As a past firefighters’ union president, I have successfully used the same tactics and gamesmanship by proposing cuts to New Haven’s paramedic program in order to achieve substantial savings on staffing — knowing full well that public outcry would apply policy pressure, and the administration would save the cherished program and indirectly maintain staffing without the city realizing any savings.
Rather than succumbing to emotional pleas, it’s imperative for board members to delve deeper, ask quality questions, and demand data that shed light on the broader budget landscape. The focus should shift toward comprehensive, nuanced assessments that lead to decisions genuinely improving the education of students, redirecting resources wisely, and eliminating inefficiencies.
School budgeting is a complex juggling act that often leaves superintendents walking a tightrope between financial constraints and public demands. Clever superintendents deploy a host of cunning tactics — including the strategic proposal of cuts to seemingly indispensable programs, designed to trigger a wave of concern and outrage among parents and the community. The fate of programs such as football or foreign-language classes, cherished for their popularity or perceived importance, becomes the focal point of heated debates and emotional appeals.
This tactic is a calculated ruse to divert attention from significant financial discrepancies lurking within the budget. This surface drama of lobbying to safeguard beloved programs is actually a shield against public scrutiny of proposed budget increases and broader budgeting issues and a way to distract from a focus on potential areas where cost reductions could be more judiciously applied. Often, needless staffing expansions over the years, unaccompanied by any tangible improvements in academic outcomes, escape examination.
This unchecked growth occurs even amid declining or stagnant student populations. Yet the waste and inefficiency is overshadowed by emotional pleas to protect favorite programs.
Instead, superintendents should be asked to chart out for the board of education the relationship between test scores, student enrollment, and the addition of staff. This chart should review the last 20 years to demonstrate how (and whether) these data points are interrelated and to clarify the relationship between staffing and educational outcomes.
Good governance demands that board members look beyond the budget and evaluate spending and procurement practices as well. Too many superintendents have adopted the old “spend it or lose it” attitude, seeing their primary duty as either protecting funding or acting as an arm of the teachers’ union. They forget that their chief responsibility is to the students and taxpayers and the management of teachers. The rush to spend funds occurs near the end of the budget cycle and is often made in haste, leaving any thought of prudent fiscal management or the taxpayers out of the equation.
Board of education members are crucial players in this theater of budget negotiations. They are tasked not only with confronting proposed cuts but with a comprehensive understanding of the entire budget landscape.
Rather than falling into the trap of only attacking proposed cuts, these members should delve deeper, probing where and how meaningful reductions could and should be made. The key is to ask quality questions and demand data.
President Ronald Reagan said, “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.” Similarly, the success of educational budgeting should be measured by its efficacy in improving learning outcomes, not by the retention of needless staff or the mere existence of programs. Redirecting resources toward initiatives that clearly enhance students’ educational experiences should be the main focus, along with trimming the fat and eliminating inefficiencies.
Board of education members must live up to their responsibility to address underlying financial challenges and foster effective educational progress, and stakeholders must first identify and then resist emotional appeals centered on superficial cuts. Instead, it’s time for them to focus on a comprehensive, nuanced assessment of the entire budget and the collective-bargaining agreements that yield decisions that will truly improve the education of our students.