January 26, 2003

The Zero-Percent Solution?

Reg Weaver
President, NEA

If you want to discover the difference between superb public schools and struggling public schools, follow the money. For example, Connecticut spends nearly 50 percent more per student than Mississippi. Guess which state has a proven record of excellent public schools? Suburban school districts often pay teachers significantly more than inner-city districts a few miles away. Guess which schools are able to attract highly qualified teachers-and which schools must resort to hiring noncertified teachers?

It's just obvious, isn't it? Adequate, equitable funding is the foundation on which excellent public schools are built. The new federal education law clearly acknowledged the link between funding and quality. It promised major new funding to give high-poverty schools a fighting chance to meet the higher academic standards required by the law.

Now, however, Washington is proposing to back away from this commitment. The Administration has proposed what amounts to a zero-percent solution: no new funding. Congress has been instructed to freeze overall federal education spending at last year's levels. Funding for the new federal law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, would actually be cut by $90 million. Forty education programs-including dropout prevention, school counselors, and rural education-would be eliminated.

At the heart of the new education law is its promise of a "highly qualified" teacher in every public school classroom by 2006. This is an extremely ambitious goal, given the nearly 200,000 noncertified teachers now concentrated mostly in schools serving poor, minority, and immigrant children. Yet the Administration has proposed cutting funding for teacher quality programs. How can this be?

Late last year, a delegation of governors met with the Administration. They pointed out that their state budgets are already in crisis and that the Administration has proposed zero new dollars to fund the expensive mandates in the new law.

Allow me to offer a suggestion: Under the new law, the federal government requires that states report once a year to determine whether schools are making "adequate yearly progress" on the academic front. I say that every year we should also have a second report. This second report will assess whether our leaders in Washington are making "adequate yearly progress" toward achieving school funding that is adequate to provide the quality ingredients every school needs, including highly qualified teachers and support professionals, small class sizes, modern facilities, and more.

In other words, instead of just measuring outputs, we also need to be measuring inputs. This is just common sense. Because it makes no sense to hold schools accountable when their resources are utterly inadequate and glaringly inequitable.

The zero-percent solution offered by Washington is not a credible solution. It is a broken promise-with tragic consequences for children.

Reg Weaver

President, National Education Association

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