Blunt touts plan to boost classroom spending

~ His proposal would require schools to spend 65 percent of their budgets on classroom expenses.

Gov. Matt Blunt said bureaucracy is taking too much money, about $272 million annually, away from classrooms in public schools across the state.

Blunt stopped at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport on Friday during his nine-city tour touting his proposed state law mandating that schools spend 65 percent of their operating budgets on classroom expenses. Blunt did not make it to all nine cities; he missed stops in Hannibal and Kirksville due to landing gear problems with his aircraft.

On Thursday, Blunt originally announced the proposal to be an amendment to the state constitution, but later changed it to a state law proposal.

The proposed law, Our Students First-First Class Education for Missourians, is a way to get more money into the classrooms without raising taxes, Blunt said.

The 65-cents-for-every-dollar solution is not Blunt's idea but Patrick M. Byrne's. Byrne is the president of www.Overstock.com. His lobbying group, First Class Education, based in Washington D.C., has gotten similar legislation passed or proposed in 17 other states. First Class Education is seeking to have legislation in all 50 states by 2008.

The public can vote in November 2006 on the proposed law, if passed by the Missouri Legislature.

That magic figure of 65 percent came from what the best states for education were spending on instructional expenses, said Rep. Scott Muschany, R-St. Louis.

Muschany said a correlation exists between districts that spend 65 percent of their operating budget on instructional expenses and high scores on standardized test.

Muschany said the legislature will use the definition of classroom expenses from the U.S. Department of Education. That definition includes teacher salaries and benefits, teacher assistant salaries and benefits, textbooks, classroom supplies, special education, language, arts, music, drama, band and athletics.

"It's a very broad definition of instructional expenses that I think is fair and reasonable," Muschany said.

Overhead, which under the definition of classroom expenses includes transportation, heating, and administration, are not as important as getting money into the classroom for education, Blunt said.

But teacher training is not included, nor are speech pathologists and guidance counselors.

Scott City superintendent Diann Bradshaw said the state requires schools to provide those services and doesn't understand why they would not be included in the 65 percent of instructional expenses.

"I'm not sure of some of the reasoning behind what he is saying," Bradshaw said.

Those staff members are not classroom teachers, but they work directly with students on a daily basis, Bradshaw said.

Jackson superintendent Dr. Ron Anderson said, "I don't suspect there was a lot of input from educators about the ramifications about something like this."

In Missouri, an average of 61 percent of a school district's operating budget is spent on instructional expenses based numbers from the 2002-2003 school year from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Using those same numbers, the National Center for Educational Statistics reports that 112 out of Missouri's 524 school districts are above the 65 percent benchmark. One of those districts is the Scott City School District, which has been above the 65 percent benchmark for the last three years, superintendent Diann Bradshaw said. According to the 2004-2005 school audit report, Scott City is spending 65.95 percent of its operating budget on instructional expenses.

Cape Girardeau School district is only at 55 percent, according to its 2004-2005 audit report, down from 57 percent for 2003-2004, according to that school year's audit report. Superintendent Dr. David Scala said he didn't want to comment before having a chance to review the district's finances on Monday.

Jackson School District is currently at 61.35 percent, according to its 2004-2005 audit report, up almost 10 percent from 2003-2004's 52.5 percent. Anderson, Jackson schools superintendent, said instructional expense decisions are best made at the local level because each district is different and that's why there are local boards of education.

Should the proposal become law for the 2006-2007 school year, districts that are not currently at or above the 65 percent benchmark would be required to improve by 2 percent each year until they reach 65 percent. Blunt said a district can seek a waiver if it does not make the 2 percent mark but shows it is making progress.

Scala was the only area superintendent to attended the news conference. Bradshaw said Wednesday evening that she was unaware that Blunt was coming and could not rearrange her schedule. Anderson was also unable to attend.

Blunt said the news conference was made public and the event was well-known. Blunt also said that teachers and school administrators should be in support of this proposed law, despite some negative publicity."There have been a number of arbitrary attacks on this proposal," Blunt said. "This is a very reasonable standard, one I believe would benefit young Missourians all across the state."

ameyer@semissourian.com

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