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Parent Christina Rohm talked about her children’s future and the state of education in Portage County when she said, “I see the loss of opportunity that my children had (and) now my neighbors and relatives aren’t receiving that.” She spoke for many of the over 100 who attended the “School-funding Reform Community Forum” at the Charles White Public Library in Stevens Point. Rohm was reacting to cuts of $5.5 million in the Stevens Point district over that last two years alone. For the coming year, the board is looking at cuts of $1.7 million and a $987,905 referendum. Rohm and her husband Dale were in the crowd, March 3, to hear about the reasons behind the local crisis and how it fit into the pattern of school-funding challenges statewide. The forum was sponsored by Stevens Point Area League of Women Voters, Stevens Point Area Parent Teacher Student Association, Portage County Business Council and the College of Letters and Science of the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. Speaking at the forum were Jack Norman, research director of the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future and staff member of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools; Dean Ryerson, superintendent with the Wisconsin Rapids School District and member of the Governor’s Task Force on Educational Excellence; and David Schuler, superintendent with the Stevens Point Area School District. Norman, who has spoke at seven similar forums throughout the state, talked again about the real culprit in the school-funding crisis, the statewide system that is Wisconsin law. He explained how the system is based on property wealth and spending levels from 1993. What we need, Norman said, is a funding plan that links revenues to our expectations for children and to their needs.
“Funding should be based on needs,” Norman said. “So the guiding principal should be based on what we expect of schools and what resources they need to meet those expectations.” Norman told the crowd it wouldn’t be easy and that “realistically, we’re not going to have any major reform in the next (state) budget, but it is something that can happen in the long run.” In the short-run, Norman urged people to support the 2005-07 biennial budget of Governor Jim Doyle. Until the state has a system that actually responds to children, he said, the governor’s budget does provide relief to property taxpayers while maintaining the present level of general state aid and modestly increasing some categorical aid (for special education, transportation, and English language learner programs. Ryerson used his own district to explain the problems with the state’s commitment to public schools. For example, he said Wisconsin Rapids commits $350 million to mandated special education programs. The government, however, reimburses the district only $40 million, well short of its promised aid. He said that the Governor’s Task Force on Educational Excellence realized the gap between mandated programs and state aid, as well as problems the funding formula has meeting the needs of small, rural school districts. The governor included many of the group’s recommendations to fix the problems, Ryerson said, but it will be up to the Legislature to keep them in the budget. Schuler talked a great deal about how the problems with the state formula are affecting Stevens Point, not only causing cuts in classes, staff lay-offs, increasing class sizes, and the upcoming referendum, but also bitter disputes between advocates for public education and property tax relief and within the public school community itself over where cuts and changes should be made, specifically the recommended closing of an elementary school. Urging those attending the forum to use the information they gained to talk with elected officials, Schuler said “there’s not a lot of interest in the Legislature in changing the formula. What it’s going to take is a couple of the large school districts going bankrupt.” Tina Peters, of the League of Women Voters, thanked those
attending and asked them to stay active and involved and to
think of what comes next. The meeting that night, she said,
will solve nothing. “It is only a first step.”
She, too, urged people to contact their lawmakers, join with
others who believe in reform, and keep working toward the
common goal for all Wisconsin public school children.
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