Cuts in the Classroom

by David Safier

(TASL) As I read the Star article, Classroom’s dollar share drops over breakfast this morning, I found myself asking, “Are all the analysts idiots?”

Everyone was trying to explain why Arizona is spending a lower percentage of our education dollar in the classroom. They all got it partly right, but mostly wrong.

The simple reason is, the less the state spends on education, the lower the percentage that ends up in the classroom. If that seems counter-intuitive (“Boy, if we’re spending less overall, we have to make sure that most of it goes into the classroom!”), here’s the obvious explanation.

You can’t lower costs for light, or heating, or water. You can’t spend less to transport students to school. If buildings need repairs, they need repairs. These and dozens of other fixed costs can’t be lowered appreciably.

So where do you cut costs if you can’t cut them in these non-classroom areas? The answer is, you make your teachers do more with less. It doesn’t cost a penny to add five more students to every classroom, or to have high school teachers see one more class every day. Teachers are paid a fixed salary. They don’t get paid by the student.

It also doesn’t cost a penny to use old, worn out history texts dating from the Eisenhower era instead of replacing them, or outdated biology texts that say some day we’ll find a way to catalogue human DNA.

When you scrimp on education, it’s always going to come out of the classroom. The only effective way to stretch your education dollar is to stretch teachers — to the breaking point.

I’ll go into more detail on this topic later.

Brought to you by the Tax-And-Spend-Liberal (TASL) News Service.