In 2002, the school system told the County Commission it would have to take band away from fifth graders if it didn’t get an extra $16 million. An extra 3,500 kids were supposed to show up that fall, crippling the school budget. The system was just starved for money, they said. To give the school system anything less than an extra $16 million would be akin to robbing little children of an education, school system leaders claimed.
Problem was, those 3,500 extra kids never showed up. Then, somehow, Superintendent James Pughsley managed to “find” an additional $5.5 million by making cuts here and there, including fewer new furniture purchases. Things were going so well by January that the system bought a fleet of 11 brand new Jeep Grand Cherokees. Certain high-ranking employees needed them to drive in the snow, the system said.
This year, the school system did it again. They claimed they needed millions more for new programs or children wouldn’t graduate. The County Commission refused to give the extra money to the school system. Miraculously, the schools found money in their scaled back budget and funded the programs anyway.
But what was particularly striking about the schools’ request for millions in extra money this year was that, among other things, it was supposed to pay for a program called Transition 9. See, a third of incoming high school freshman had failed either their state math or reading tests and were in danger of not graduating. So the system wanted more money to re-teach them.
It wasn’t exactly a confidence-inspiring request. In fact, it left some commissioners wondering how well the system had spent the budget increases it had given the schools in the past.
Then there’s the stuff leaking out around the edges, the stories County Commissioners read in Creative Loafing. Like how the system’s bill for bringing urban and largely black school buildings up to date would likely come in at three-quarters of a billion dollars, yet the system had done almost nothing about the fact that the teachers inside those new buildings were the least experienced in the system. Or the stories about how a majority of kids at these schools say they don’t feel safe? Or the ones about the registered sex offender who committed his crime on campus but was allowed to return to school?
Though they’re not always willing to say it publicly, there are a lot of public officials who wonder if the folks over at CMS have a screw loose.
That’s what bothers me about the new Democratic majority on the county commission. (As of press time, it appears we have at least a two-person Democratic majority, maybe three.) Basically, they’re promising to do what the Democrats have always done when they’re in power — chuck money at CMS without asking the hard questions. Questions like why a third of high school seniors failed their state exams.
It’s part of a vicious cycle in which Democrats fund big budget increases for CMS with big tax increases while they’re in power. Since the commission keeps switching back and forth between Republican and Democrat control, CMS is forced to try to get as much as it can during the Democrat years because when the Republicans come back into power, they’ll refuse to give the system more money because they think the Democrats gave it too much the year before.
It’s an insane way to fund schools. No one is held accountable. School system leaders don’t have to take responsibility for much of anything because they can blame their woes on the Republicans on the commission who didn’t give them enough money.
Before the election, there was a glimmer of hope. Democrats and Republicans on the commission agreed to give the system an extra $6 million for something called the high school challenge. The program actually has a semi-defined goal — to raise the test scores in Charlotte’s neediest high schools. That means that next year, when the results begin to come in, commissioners will know exactly what they got for their money for once. If it fails, Pughsley will have to actually take the blame for something. And if it works, he’ll get deserved praise.
The outgoing Republican majority also put in place a framework that would fund schools on a per pupil basis, an improvement over the current system, in which how much money CMS gets is determined by how loud school leaders whine and who is in power.
The incoming Democrat majority will likely undo that, and that’s a shame. People are looking for someone, anyone, with enough backbone to demand change in our schools. But they don’t necessarily want to starve the schools to get it.
If they stuck with the system the Republicans set up and held the school system accountable while swapping increased county funding for promised results, the Democrats could own the school issue in Mecklenburg County. Hopefully they’ll figure this out by budget time.
Contact Tara Servatius at tara.servatius@cln.com
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2004.
