Back to: VEA Home  /  News & Advocacy

• Subscribe
• Email
• Print

Don’t Shortchange Funding, SOQ Committee Urged

The Board of Education, at the SOQ Committee meeting May 27, got an earful from everyone from VEA President Kitty Boitnott (complete testimony below) to Kelly Harris-Braxton, executive director of the Virginia First Cities Coalition.

All eleven speakers who approached the Board's Standards of Quality (SOQ) Committee opposed Governor Kaine's proposed Support Position Cap that will permanently cut $340 million per year from public school funding.

Harris-Braxton pointed out Virginia's First Cities already spend nearly 80 percent  above the required local effort and "cannot afford a support position cap."

The City of Petersburg is a prime example of what is wrong with the Kaine proposal.  The city has a 31-percent dropout rate. Despite the fact that Petersburg is one of Virginia's poorest localities, ranking 130 out of 136 on the local composite index (LCI), it exceeds the state's required local effort by 11 percent. Four of the city's eight schools are Title I schools designated to be "In Need of Improvement" and the system failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) of  No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

The Kaine proposal would reduce funding to Petersburg schools by $1,736,957 per year.

The proposal will reduce total K-12 funding by $340 million per year statewide.  These are permanent formulaic cuts which, if adopted, will be with us well after the recession is over. We certainly understand the magnitude of the fiscal disaster facing the Commonwealth and are prepared to make sacrifices; however, let us not make the sacrifices borne by our system of public education permanent.

The Board of Education is planning public hearings across the state. We'll get dates, times and locations to you as soon as they are available. Please make speaking out at these hearings a priority. If the Kaine proposal is adopted individuals in your school will lose their jobs.

---

Here is the testimony offered by VEA President Kitty Boitnott:

President Emblidge, members of the Board, Dr. Wright and ladies and gentlemen, I am Kitty Boitnott, President of the Virginia Education Association.

On March 26, I offered the full Board VEA’s position on the “appropriateness of the existing staffing standards for instructional positions and the appropriateness of establishing ratio standards for support positions.” I have attached those remarks, and I hope you will make them a matter of record for this committee. Today, I will speak to the broader issue of funding the Standards of Quality.

The Constitution of Virginia requires that “an educational program of high quality is established and continually maintained.“ And, the Board of Education is tasked with the Constitutional role of determining and prescribing the Standards of Quality.

You address your Constitutional obligation in the context of bleak economic times. The most recent report of the Secretary of Finance was laced with phrases such as:  “deep recession”, “sharpest two-quarter drop since 1958”, and “largest drop on record.”

The juxtaposition of the anticipated and deep recessionary budget shortfall and your Constitutional responsibility to prescribe standards to maintain an educational program of high quality demands a consequential philosophical decision of this board. You must decide if you prescribe standards reflective of budgetary restraints or standards reflective of the educational needs of Virginia’s students.

It would be far better in the long run to set the standards required to support an education of high quality and not fully fund them, as we face the ravages of this recession, than to set inadequate standards which will be with us when the recession becomes Virginia’s most recent “late unpleasantness.”

Since the adoption of the Standards in August of 1971 by this Board, the legal presumption in regard to the standards is that they must be realistic and reasonable in relation to school division practices.

The Standards of Quality set Virginia’s minimum foundation program, and VEA has long contended that the floor of this foundation is set too low. This makes local wealth a major variable in the quality of education received by Virginia’s children. According to Congressional Quarterly’s State Fact Finder Series: Education State Rankings 2008-2009, Virginia actually ranks 37th in state funding per pupil (p. 71) and 14th in local funding per pupil (p. 86). In the 2007-2008 school year, Arlington spent $20,317 per pupil, while King George spent $8,105.  Virginia’s current system begets disparity, and raising the floor is the most logical response to this problem.

Our current standards do not reflect the instructional staffing levels needed to achieve the Standards of Learning, and our investment in instruction must support the progressively increasing expectation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), “100 percent proficiency for all students by 2013-14 (US Sec. of Education, July 24, 21002).” The SOQ currently fund 90,000 positions while our localities fund 105,000 positions.

I ask that you carefully review the adequacy of the standards in regard to compensation costs associated with school division personnel. We came very close to the national average in 1991, but three recessions later we find that the eighth wealthiest state in the nation ranks 30th in teacher salaries. The current administration has seen us drop from 5th to 8th in the SREB, below Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana and Florida. The current state budget salary level is $44,337 for elementary teachers and $46,230 for secondary teachers. The state average is $48,554 and the national average is $53,910. Re-establishing a salary goal in the standards would be a significant step in attracting and retaining high quality instructional personnel. Just as in our classrooms, if we set realistic, yet challenging, goals we will achieve them. Without goals, little progress is made.

Consider not only our salary rankings, but the state share of support for health insurance and other fringe benefits. I have attached a display showing the disproportionate impact of increases in health insurance costs borne by educators as compared to state employees. In the years ahead, I think it is safe to say that most educators will see their take-home pay decrease as a consequence of rising health insurance premiums.  Language addressing the need for competitive health care benefits is in order.

VEA has worked closely with this Board over the years. When we last made significant improvements to the Standards of Quality, we stood with former board member Gary Jones before the General Assembly. We have supported your efforts to enhance the standards in recent sessions. We offer continued support and partnership as we work to see that education is a priority of our Commonwealth.

Allow me to close with an eye to your Constitutional role. I direct your attention to the Virginia Bill of Rights:

Section 15. Qualities necessary to preservation of free government.

…That free government rests, as does all progress, upon the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge, and that the Commonwealth should avail itself of those talents which nature has sown so liberally among its people by assuring the opportunity for their fullest development by an effective system of education throughout the Commonwealth.

Thank you.