Public schools: Open your books

Armed with information, citizens can help make schools better and more cost-effective

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, June 2, 2011

By Thomas Hylton

Public schools will likely be the defining issue for Gov. Corbett’s first term in office.  With a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature, the governor hopes to cut costs and improve the quality of education through innovation, competition, and choice.

While vouchers and charter schools are controversial, there’s one easy innovation that could save millions of dollars:  Require each school district to prepare and publish on its website a comprehensive, reader-friendly budget according to a template developed by the state Department of Education.

As a school board member and former reporter who covered school districts for years, I‘ve found the greatest obstacle for both school directors and citizens who want an efficient school system is the lack of pertinent information.

Theoretically, school boards control spending and establish policy.  As a practical matter, they are completely dependent on their superintendent to provide information.  By controlling information, administrators can usually control how school boards vote.  And very few administrators look to cut costs unless they are forced to.

At present, most school districts publish only bare bones budgets, if they publish them at all.  Even the best school budgets, such as the 200-page budget of the Mt. Lebanon School District, a perennial award winner, is not as clear and specific as it ought to be.

A budget should show board members and the public exactly where dollars are being spent. Facts should be reported by building – the names, job descriptions, and costs of all personnel, broken down by salaries and fringe benefits, the sizes of every class, the costs to operate each building, and specific transportation costs.  A chart should show how many students (withholding names) are placed in alternative education schools and the cost of each one.

After I was elected to the school board in my home of Pottstown in November 2009, I asked for a line-item budget, a master schedule showing how many students were in each class, and charts showing how all the spaces were being used.  My request caused quite a fuss.  Micromanagement! Breach of security! Waste of valuable administrators’ time!

But once I received the information, I made some interesting discoveries. For example, the smallest class sizes should be in the primary grades, but we were doing the opposite.  Our primary grades averaged 24 children each, while the average class size at the high school was 18.  Our high school and middle schools were touted as more efficient than our neighborhood elementary schools, but the budget showed energy costs were twice as much per student at the secondary level than at the elementary level.  It was easy to see why: Our secondary schools, which were enlarged 10 years ago, are now oversized: the high school’s capacity is 1,400 students, but it only enrolls 800. Our middle school has room for 960 students, but only enrolls 610. Yet each of our elementary schools has four or five modular classrooms behind it.

Over the last decade, even as our enrollment was declining, we were adding an enormous number of aides and ancillary employees.  For many of these employees, the cost of fringe benefits is more than their salaries.  And regular classroom teachers now comprise less than a third of our staff.

This is the kind of information we need as a school community to make intelligent use of our resources.  But in most districts, like Pottstown, even board members are usually ignorant of the pertinent facts. 

Publishing a detailed budget should not be difficult.  For decades, the state has required school districts to record every expenditure according to a uniform system.  Among other benefits, this system allows the state Department of Education to make “apples to apples” comparisons among districts on everything from personnel costs to utility bills.  Districts must report enrollment and demographic information to the state. If they want to renovate or construct buildings, they have to do architectural studies – all in a format established by the state.

So the hard part – standardized information gathering – is already being done. But like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle box, none of it is assembled in a way that makes sense.  A uniform format is needed to translate the numbers into a comprehensive, reader-friendly narrative.

The Internet and search engines have revolutionized civilization by making abundant information available to all.  Certainly, education is vitally important, and in Pennsylvania, nothing consumes more tax dollars.  Therefore, we should ensure all citizens have readily accessible, credible information, showing how their local public schools function.

Gov. Corbett believes competition from private and charter schools can make public schools more efficient and responsive to people’s needs.  Requiring open and accessible budgets can do the same.  And the more information our school districts provide, the more trust and support they will earn.