Reflections on a failed referendum
John Mackenzie
As a school board member in the Christina School District, I was deeply disappointed in the failure of Christina’s recent referendum. The district’s transformation plan—neighborhood schools, grade reconfigurations, strengthened core curricula, small learning communities in the high schools, and a lot more—was riding on it. Superintendent Joey Wise had just left for Florida, so despite the board majority’s steadfast commitment to the reform package, there was skepticism that the district would follow through on the plan. The state delayed approving the referendum proposal until late fall. Funding had to be in place by February for a construction schedule that would complete the new middle and elementary schools for the 2006-07 school year. So we had a very tight time-frame and no superintendent in place to promote the campaign.
We knew it would be a tough sell, and it failed. Voter turnout was low. In a district with about 170,000 residents the capital referendum lost 2,921 to 4,798, and operating referendum lost 2,242 to 5,384. A team of volunteers polled voters as they exited the polling stations. 57 percent of voters do not have school-age children, and 79 percent of them voted no. One third of the voters who do have school-age children do not send their children to Christina schools, and 21 percent of voters who do have school-age children voted no. 63 percent of voters were fifty or older, and 73 percent of them voted no. 28 percent were 65 or older, and 86 percent of them voted no. Only about 2,200 parents of Christina kids voted. The polling stations were their kids’ schools, but a lot of parents who pick their kids up at school didn’t bother to go in and vote.
In Delaware, voters have to authorize school tax increases. Our property tax rates look high because they are calculated on assessed values from 1983, not current market values. With no reassessment since 1983, the only way public school systems can build schools and deal with rising operating costs is to increase tax rates at referendum.
The assessed value of the typical house in New Castle County is only $60,000, less than one-quarter of its current market value. Don’t let the property tax rates fool you. Delaware’s actual per-capita local property taxes are eighth-lowest in the nation, and barely half the national average. Delaware public schools get proportionately more of their support from the state than public schools in most other states. Sixty-four percent of Christina’s funding is from the state, 5.7 percent comes from targeted federal programs, and 30.3 percent is covered by local taxes and other sources. When local voters pass a referendum, it leverages a lot of state money as well. When a referendum fails, the district loses out on state funds also.
But taxpayers are feeling squeezed and frustrated now. Congress, state legislatures, county councils, municipal governments, even Delaware's vo-tech school boards, can simply vote themselves tax increases, and taxpayers are powerless to stop it. Delaware's regular public school systems are the only taxing authorities that have to get approval at referendum for tax increases to build or renovate schools, or give teachers raises. Our federal taxes are paying for Iraq and bridges to nowhere in Alaska, and our state taxes paying for congested roads and awful prisons, and a lot of voters are resentful, so they voters took their frustrations out the only way they could—on the regular public school system.
Opponents of the referendum were quick to exploit voter confusion. “What did the district do with the 2002 referendum money?” “Why did my taxes go up each of the last three years?” A referendum is a line of credit. The state sells bonds to raise the money over several years, not all at once, and property taxes go to pay for the bonds when they are sold, not immediately. Christina’s 2002 referendum projects were estimated at 2001 construction costs, and the new schools scheduled for the final phase are no longer affordable at 2006 costs. We are completing all the other projects in the 2002 referendum, but we will not tap the 2002 monies for the two new schools until we know they can be completed properly.
Christina, along with many other Delaware school districts, is at the political tipping point. Political support for public education is gradually eroding, and political opposition is building. Between private schools, home-schooling and drop-outs, fully one third of the school-age kids living in the Christina School District do not attend Christina schools. Brandywine, Red Clay and Colonial have similarly low market shares. Families that have abandoned public schools won’t support higher school taxes.
Most seniors don’t like school taxes either, partly because Delaware’s school tax credit for seniors actually magnifies the shock of tax rate increases. Qualifying seniors get a 50% credit on their school taxes, but only up to $500. For example, under the current tax rate of $1.612 per $100 of assessed value, a senior with a typical house assessed at $60,000 pays $483.60 after the credit. Christina’s referendum would have raised the 2007 tax rate to $1.8804 per $100, a 16.7% increase. But with the senior tax credit limited to $500, the senior would then pay $628.24, a 29.9% increase. It’s no wonder many seniors think school spending is out of control.
We want seniors to feel a positive connection to schools. Instead of a capped credit that magnifies the tax shock, we should simply cap seniors’ property taxes once they reach age 65. The Avon Grove (PA) School District expects able seniors to earn school tax rebates by volunteering in schools. Our elementary schools could certainly use more HOSTS volunteers to help kids learn to read!
Public schools are at the heart of every strong, successful community in America. Communities that support their schools succeed. Communities that starve their schools slowly suffer and die. I think the lack of confidence in public education in Delaware reflects a peculiar inferiority complex that afflicts many Delawareans, as if mediocre schools are "the Delaware way." We need to drop the loser attitude. The negative attitude about public schools hurts Delaware’s ability to recruit new employers and create new jobs, and it hurts our property values too.
There is actually a strong positive correlation between school spending and property values. My own analysis of 2003 state-level data indicates that each $1 increase in annual per-pupil public school spending increases median property values by $18.84. A more detailed national study by Barrow and Rouse (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2002) shows that each $1 increase in annual per-pupil school spending increases housing values by $20. The school taxes you pay are capitalized right back into the value of your house.
Christina’s total 2005-06 operating budget is $241,898,913, which averages out to $12,458 per student. To the district’s critics, that looks like a lot of money, but averages can be deceiving. This includes the Sterck School for the deaf, and the Delaware Autism Program, and the TeamWorks program for students with other disabilities. It includes out-of-state programs for some profoundly impaired children that cost as much as $100,000 per student annually. Christina serves over 3,100 special education students, over 700 English-language learners, over 8,200 students on free or reduced-price meals, and about 100 children who are homeless at any given time. Christina also serves National Merit Scholars, students taking a huge array of Advanced Placement courses (the district pays for their AP exams), and many of the best young athletes, artists, musicians and scientists in Delaware.
Public schools serve every child. Every child is entitled to a free and appropriate education--an education that meets his or her particular needs. It’s the law, and it’s a moral imperative too. The recent editorial by Secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff got it right: a public charter school that just cherry-picks the rich, smart, well-behaved kids, and refuses to accommodate the education needs of the broader community, is breaking the law. It’s also morally objectionable. It's like health insurers cherry-picking healthy customers and denying coverage to the sick. Parents who want their children taught in exclusive learning environments have plenty of good private schools to choose from, and those schools don't need unfair competition from publicly-subsidized competitors.
It’s time to stop bad-mouthing Delaware’s public schools. In the March 2006 report “Primary Progress, Secondary Challenge” by the Education Trust, Delaware public schools rank among the best in the nation in score gains and reduced achievement gaps on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the biggest standardized test in the US. Almost 25 percent of Delaware high school students took at least one Advanced Placement exam in 2005, up from 13 percent in 2000 and well above the national average. More graduates are going to college, and their average SAT scores are rising. Our public schools are a whole lot better than the critics would have you believe. How many of those critics could pass the 10th grade DSTP?
If we expect students to fail, they will fail. If we expect students to succeed, they will succeed. Christina is challenging its students and expecting more from them than ever before. In last year alone Christina tripled its AP course offerings and enrollments, and every student in an AP class was required to take the AP test (the district paid for these), and the majority of our AP students still scored 3 or better on their exams, qualifying for college-level credits. Every student wins in AP classes. Even the students who score less than 3 on AP exams perform far better in college than equivalent students who never faced the challenge of an AP class.
Expectations matter. If we expect public schools to fail, they will fail, and our community will suffer. If we expect schools to succeed, they will succeed, and our community will thrive.
Consider how far America’s public education system has come from its 19th century origins. Public schools took in waves and waves of our immigrant ancestors and trained them for good jobs and made them Americans. Through the early part of the 20th century most children left school by the end of 8th grade with adequate reading, writing and math skills to enter the workforce; high schools were mostly for privileged white boys. It took decades for girls and then minorities to win full acceptance in public schools. As the US labor market has demanded more skilled workers, public schools became more inclusive, and the percentage of adults in the US with high school diplomas has risen continuously. Public schools are still doing the hard work of transforming immigrants into Americans. They are more inclusive than ever, and they are still the best pathway out of poverty. As Horace Mann said almost 160 years ago, education “prevents being poor.”
It’s the kids in public schools who will determine America’s future. We can make a collective effort to insure that all children get high-quality educational opportunities, or we can let our public schools starve. We can give every kid a fair shot at success, or we can let the social divide between haves and have-nots become a chasm. We can do our best to educate all kids now, or we can deal with the social costs of ignorance later: unemployment, poverty, addiction, crime, prison.
Delaware spends about $200 million each year to keep 6,600 inmates incarcerated in state prisons. The Department of Corrections processes 20,000 people annually through its detention facilities, and maintains 19,000 convicts on probation. Each prison inmate costs Delaware taxpayers $25,000 a year. That’s just a small fraction of the cost of failed education.
Congress has just raised the national debt ceiling to $9 trillion, which works out to $30,000 of federal debt per American. We’re spending wildly, and dumping all this debt on our children, and then begrudging them the education that would enable them to pay it off. What kind of society makes choices like that?
We’re worried about oil security and homeland security and Social Security, but I humbly submit that we have our priorities wrong. Real security isn't control of Iraq's oil fields or airport metal detectors or monthly checks from the government. Real security is a strong economy driven by an educated citizenry. Public education is the most important strategic investment we can make.