A great line from Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff explains what caused the development of the jet planes that broke the sound barrier: “…no bucks, no Buck Rogers”. Bucks as in money. Test pilot courage and skill and the aerodynamics of the Bell X1 aside, funding was the propellant necessary for moving man past the speed of sound and into outer space. Money makes things happen.
The presence or absence of bucks also explains a lot about schools. Money is not the the singular characteristic of successful schools, but the constant lack of money is a regular characteristic of struggling schools. Money that is well spent has the power to propel student learning just as it did NASA’s rockets. Money committed to a specific educational outcome can accomplish great achievements in student learning. What would it take to make your school district a Buck Rogers launch pad?
Take Away
Public education is a public expense derived from the collection of taxes levied for public purposes. I accentuate the word “public” because the responsibility for educating our youth is assigned by the Constitution to each state’s government. Although the federal government contributes large bundles of money through Title programs, a majority of education cost is paid by state and local tax money. Public education taken in total is one of our nation’s major businesses. National spending on education in 2019 approximated $690 billion. A huge number! The number is more understandable as a per pupil expense of $12,201 in 2019.
Turn the numbers sidewise. The average 2019 teacher salary in the USA is $60,000. Tack on a benefits package of $20,000. Using averages with an instructional year of 180 days and a workday of 8 hours, an hour of instruction costs $65.
What do we know?
Education is an intentional cause and effect relationship. We are instructed and we learn. We can be educated about many things at little to no cost. Self-instruction. The difference between self-education and public education is scope. Part of the scope is the number of students. Consider all the children in your community and that is your target scope. Another part of scope is time. As a rule, we educate children for 13 years or from enrollment in 4K to graduation from grade 12. The third component of scope is the breadth and depth of curricular and co-curricular programs. This scope is all the academic, activity, arts and athletic programs sponsored by the school board.
Programming over time has cost and these costs vary according to the population. Consider the 1.1 million children in New York City’s public schools and the 503 children in my local school district. NYC requires $25 billion to per year fund all its programs for its population of 4K-12 children and our local schools require $11 million per year. Each is a lot of zeroes; the scope of cost is in the zeroes.
Dazzling dollar signs aside, there is no scientifically-derived amount of money that equals a quality education. Children can succeed in schools with low per pupil spending as well as in high spending schools. And, low spending schools can achieve superb educational outcomes for all children and high spending schools can sputter to cause below basic educational outcomes. Returning to The Right Stuff, some schools send their children into space and other schools fail to leave the ground. The critical attributes are well-trained teachers connecting with well-written curricula and a variety of learning support systems to assist children with challenges.
The question I raise is “What prevents all schools from sending all children into the educational equivalent of outer space?”.
As long teachers are paid a fair, living wage for the community in which they reside and work, the answer is not spending more money on salaries and benefits.
Instead, the answer is “What is the cost of the educational outcomes you want for all children?”. The answer is “The amount of money needed to create my school district’s Buck Rogers”. I understand Buck Rogers may be a different educational goal and outcome in each school school district.
Why is this thus?
Local control. National averages show that 47% of public education costs are paid by state funding. 8% is paid with federal funds. 45% of educational costs are borne by local taxes. Political processes complicate or eliminate the possibility of state legislatures or Congress significantly increasing the dollars available to educate the children in your community. School boards levy local taxes to raise, on average, $45 of every $100 spent in local pubic school. If school boards need more money to provide their Buck Rogers education, their local control of the tax levy is the tool to do so. As Kevin Bacon said in A Few Good Men, “These are the facts and they are undisputed”. If a school board wants Buck Rogers results, the school board has the power to raise the necessary money.
To Do
• Prioritize your educational outcomes. What is a Buck Rogers educational outcome in your school district? Remember that Rogers did not just get off the launch pad, he reached into outer space. Your Buck Rogers educational outcome needs to be very significant.
• Commit to assuring the achievement of your highest priority outcome. Create a community consensus agreeing to your significant Buck Rogers educational outcome. Publish what Buck Rogers looks like in your schools.
• Determine a strategy of actions required to achieve your Buck Rogers outcome. Plan the work. The plan undoubtedly will require time for educator training, curricular organization, development of support services, and monitoring and adjusting along the way. Take the long look in developing your outcome strategy. A big Buck Rogers is worth doing well.
• Create a funding strategy to pay for these required actions. Fund the work. Simply remember this: No bucks, no Buck Rogers. Most strong Buck Rogers outcomes require initial and continuing funding – create funding that goes the distance.
• Implement your strategy of actions. Work the plan. Remember that all other educational programs within your schools will continue to operate while you develop your Buck Rogers. If you allow other programs to diminish or fail, Rogers will crash. Buck Rogers is inside the district’s total programming not instead of its programming.
• Achieve your local Buck Rogers education.
It is surprising how simple planning for a Buck Rogers educational outcome is once you commit your school district to achieving a Rogers outcome. The most difficult part of the scheme is selecting your district’s Buck Rogers outcome. As soon as you make that your #1, the rest of the #s fall into place.
The Big Duh
School Boards are not required to create Buck Rogers plans. A board can adopt an annual educational plan that meets state standards and statutory requirements. No more than that is required. A board can levy the minimum amount of money required to achieve their minimal educational plan. Today, when school boards meet the statutory and mandate requirements, boards are meeting the responsibilities of their elected office. However, meeting the mandate and statutory requirements in my state and across our nation result in a majority of our children achieving below proficiency on all academic standards. Read this again. The outcomes that schools achieve by implementing only the mandated and statutory requirements are academic inproficiency.
Buck Rogers flies well above the proficiency barrier. Local control gives a school board the option to provide Buck Rogers educational outcomes. Buck Rogers requires bucks and spending of those bucks stops or starts at the school board.