Summary of the Governor’s
Task Force on Educational Excellence
»Full
Report
Recommendations
School Funding
-
Maintain spending caps and the system used to distribute
state funds to school districts.
-
Do an education “cost-out” to define the
staff, materials, equipment and facilities needed for
children to get a sound, basic education and to determine
how much that would cost.
-
Increase state aid for students with disabilities, students
who need to learn English, and students in schools where
many children are from low-income families.
-
Increase state aid for student transportation, especially
for rural schools with high busing costs.
-
Expand four-year-old kindergarten and improve child
care teaching.
|
 |
Teacher Quality
-
Change the state QEO law which restricts teacher contract
bargaining and holds down salary increases.
-
Increase opportunities for teacher training.
-
Reward teachers who are effective, especially in schools
with hard-to-teach students.
-
Find and keep more minority teachers and teachers for
rural schools.
|
Property Tax Reduction
-
Increase sales tax by one penny per dollar and place
a sales tax on services such as public relations, health
clubs and lawyers (but not medical services or groceries)
to raise $1.5 billion.
-
Cut school property taxes by an average of 40% (using
money from increased sales taxes).
|
Strengths
and Weaknesses of Task Force Recommendations
Strengths:
Increased funding for public education.
More state aid for students with special needs
and for early education.
Increased support for teacher training and recruitment.
Using state tax dollars to cut local property
taxes.
Weaknesses:
Keeping the current funding system
which is unfair and inadequate.
Too little state aid to prevent further staff
and program cuts in most schools.
Not enough help for small rural schools.
New state sales-tax revenue used only for property
tax cuts, not to improve education.
|
|
|
Back
to Task Force
Back to Recent Events |
See
Budget Recommendations
Task
Force Summary.pdf (for handouts) |
