Voting for Education in Michigan

On November 3rd Washtenaw County voters will be asked to approve a county-wide school millage. Over the past several years, this county has seen some of its districts consolidate services, cut programs, increase class sizes, and spend money from the district’s “rainy-day” fund balance. We’ve seen school employees and their unions accept pay freezes and higher contributions to their health care plan. We’ve seen all ten districts reduce administrative costs, not replace retiring staff, reduce inventory, collapse services.

In Ann Arbor, the district has already cut over $16 million dollars over the last four years. But because of the State’s system of funding schools (through sales taxes), over the past several years, State funding has decreased steadily. So, most of the districts are working from an ever increasing deficit, even with the cuts made.

Based on the proposed cuts in the State budget and the recent decision by the Governor to issue mid-year prorations to local schools, there is a reasonable expectation that Michigan school districts’ cuts will fall in the $289-613 range – per student.

While it is difficult to imagine what that cut means; by way of illustration, let me walk you through an elementary school in this post cut world.

First of all, if the district doesn’t cut it completely, school buses may be really full, and if you live within a mile of school, no bus for you, and by the way, your kids’ ride to school may very well be an hour and a half long (*Note; school transportation is not a required educational service, except for special education).

The school building may not be sparklingly clean, as the district had to put all custodial staff on part time or split assignments. Classrooms may be cleaned every other day, so don’t look too closely at the floor of your kindergartener’s classroom, and don’t worry that the bathrooms are not that tidy. Your building secretary may not know you, as the district will probably cut these positions as well, going with contractors perhaps, or split scheduling office staff. Don’t worry, the message will get through, eventually.

In the classrooms, your child will be one of about 40, or more. (*Note; there is no law in Michigan mandating class size) Each building will certainly collapse classrooms, lay off the newest teachers, take library/media staff and/or music and/or art teachers with teaching certificates and put them in classrooms. So, no more instrumental music for your kid, vocal music is out, art classes may be out, and the library may become a field trip for your kid’s class. Speaking of field trips, those are gone too.

I imagine that some families will be able to augment the instrumental music with private lessons, art classes at the Y, maybe taking their children to the public library and spending some quality time finding some good books to read. Maybe some of us will revel in the fact that we can now walk our children to school, like the old days, and be there at 3:48 pm to pick them up and walk them home. We’ll have to quit our jobs, though, or maybe go to part time so we can augment our children’s lost education. We'll all pay for the lost education of our children.

Or we can support our schools, our hard working teachers, and our children’s education. Business leaders like to be in Washtenaw County, because they can point to our great schools in recruiting high level employees. The University of Michigan attracts world class researchers, doctors, and academics because we have a highly successful school district. Our homes are actually worth more when the local schools are considered successful. Even with the substantial cuts already made, Ann Arbor Schools’ MEAP scores (an indicator of school success) are significantly above the state average.

We are at a tipping point with regards to our local schools. If these state cuts are actualized, and all indications are that they will be, the schools will not be able to absorb that level of cuts without cutting deeply into your child’s classroom. This millage will allow the schools to maintain current levels of class size, transportation, related service providers (Music, Art, Library, PE, etc) for next few years as we continue to push our state to repair the structural deficit problems with regard to State funding of education.

Vote for our future. Whether you have children in the schools or not, we must act now to ensure that our future leaders have the opportunity to learn in high achieving schools.

Vote Yes on November 3, 2009.

Neal Elyakin, Ann Arbor
October 23, 2009