Superintendent Testifies in State Senate Against Budget Cuts

On April 13, Superintendent Dr. Michael F. Rice testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee: K-12, School Aid, Education. Below are excerpts from that testimony as they appear in the May 2011 Excelsior. The full-length testimony is also available online.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Michael Rice, and I am superintendent of the Kalamazoo Public Schools, an urban district of 12,400 students, the largest district in Southwest Michigan and the second largest on the west side of the state.

Since the advent in November 2005 of the Kalamazoo Promise -- free college tuition for KPS high school graduates -- KPS has had 5 years of rising enrollment, 4 years of rising elementary and middle school test scores in reading and math, 2 newly constructed schools, and high school Advanced Placement (AP) participation that has doubled in the last three years. Indeed, KPS's MEAP results have increased by three times the state's growth rate in both reading and math over the last two years. Compared to three years ago, 130 percent more students now take AP courses, our students take 174 percent more AP courses, and the percentages of African-American, economically disadvantaged, and Hispanic students taking AP courses during this period have risen by 311 percent, 298 percent, and 750 percent, respectively. Our improvement as a district and community has received both state and national recognition, most recently with a long article in the national education journal, Kappan. Nevertheless, to paraphrase the great American poet Robert Frost, we have "miles to go before we sleep, miles to go before we sleep."

Some people have suggested that because we are fortunate enough to have the Kalamazoo Promise, we must be living large. Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, 69 percent of our children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Second of all, during the seven years prior to the Kalamazoo Promise, we cut $19 million in a host of areas, from teachers to custodians, from librarians to paraprofessionals. The result of these cuts has been substantial. Here are two examples:

• With 17 elementary schools, we have two elementary librarians.
• With 12,400 students, we have just two nurses in the district.

Two springs ago, in spite of federal economic stimulus funds and rising enrollment that is among the fastest growing in the state, we cut $1.5 million to balance our 2009-2010 budget. Last spring, in spite of similarly rising enrollment and a per-pupil foundation allowance that the legislature held constant, we still cut $2.5 million to balance our 2010-2011 budget. Indeed, in each of the last two years, we worked with our teachers' association to change health insurance plans to save $1 million, to change the premium payment for staff members to save another $700,000, and to change middle school and high school schedules to increase student learning time and generate savings at the same time.

§

The governor's budget proposal would take a bad situation and make it much worse. A $470 per pupil cut from this year's foundation allowance and a state-mandated retirement contribution rate increase that costs districts approximately $230 per student means that the gross budget cut for many districts will be $700 per student, prior to any health insurance rate increases. Unfortunately, the governor's proposal doesn't stop there. The governor proposes to eliminate a class size reduction grant, which permits children in high-poverty schools, between 80 and 97 percent free or reduced-price lunch eligible in KPS, to have lower class sizes in grades K-3. These are formative years for young people, all the more the case for children who have the misfortune to be born into poverty. For several years, this grant, only $2.4 million to the state but a world of difference for our poor children, helped poor students get off to a better start in our high-poverty schools. The governor's proposal would eliminate this important grant and would raise class sizes for poor children as a direct result. This cut is another $200 per student. Our total cut under the governor's proposal in just these three budget categories: $900 per student, or approximately $11.2 million.

§

What children and schools need to help children achieve success in schools is stable, adequate funding. The current funding system provides neither stable nor adequate funding for children and their schools. State legislators of the last several years are complicit in the inadequacies of our state's public schools. The inability or unwillingness of the state legislature to fund in a stable, adequate fashion our public schools has far-reaching implications for the future of the state of Michigan.

Last week, I received correspondence from a former Michigan businessman who said that he couldn't believe the governor's budget proposal purported to be about jobs. He wrote:

I worked in mergers and acquisitions during the last 10 years I was there, whenever those kinds of situations arose. I was involved in virtually every decision regarding workforce deployment, including plant closures, during that period. Taxes never came up in any discussion. It was all about the skills of the workplace, and their ability to do the jobs we needed to get done.

Working with that 'corporate' theme and 'dashboard' comparison of the situation in the Midwest:

The Governor is proposing a simplified 6% business tax. Indiana is 8.5%. Illinois is over 9%. Minnesota is 9.8%. Which state is in the best economic shape in the Midwest? Answer: Minnesota! Why? Best educated workforce!!! The numbers don't lie, Governor. Education needs to be this state's #1 priority if we truly want to get back on top. So, make the simplified business tax rate 8% and you still undercut Indiana. This also gives you the funding necessary to do right by community colleges and universities and LEAVE THE FUNDING FOR K-12 SCHOOLS ALONE!

I understand what he means. There is little ability for a state to compete for business and by extension jobs in the absence of a strong public education system, and starving the public education system -- and at the same time denigrating those people who educate our children -- is not a way to recruit either to the profession or to the state.

Four years ago, my wife and I decided to return to Michigan from New Jersey. We had worked and lived in Lansing, had left to go to Northern New Jersey for a superintendency, and decided to come back. We decided to return, even though we saw some things that gave us pause: In our low-tax, low-spend district in Northern New Jersey, every elementary school had a nurse. In Kalamazoo, a medium-tax, medium-spend district in Michigan, all the students in the district -- approximately 11,000 at the time of my application -- shared two nurses. In our Northern New Jersey district, each elementary school had at least a half-time librarian, and most had a full-time librarian. In Kalamazoo, there are two elementary librarians and 17 elementary schools.

When and where a child is born should never determine the quality of his or her education. Yet if the governor's budget in some substantial measure is approved by the state legislature in the coming months, that will in fact be the case: children who had the misfortune to be born just a few years ago in the state of Michigan will pay the price in the form of diminished educational resources -- and educational quality, given the enormity of the cuts in question.

We brought our young people into the world. It was the right thing to do. We have a responsibility to care for them in a markedly better way than the governor's budget -- or for that matter, the chairman's budget -- would allow. Thank you for your consideration of this testimony.