The Unintended Consequences of BRAC on Growth Communities
Selected regions of the country will soon experience a surge in growth resulting from the federal legislation of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC). The rationale supporting this multi-billion dollar legislation quantifies several well-intended national military objectives. However, a closer inspection of BRAC reveals both risks and opportunities for many growth communities surrounding military bases across America.
There are two distinct effects emerging from the BRAC implementation. On one side of this equation are military bases in several states designated to close and the anticipated loss of military-related populations. On the other side are military bases and regions gaining significant populations.
Congress purposefully provided necessary financial relief and benefits for regions loosing a military presence as a result of BRAC. Without federal financial assistance, long-established military communities slated to downsize may not be able to transition into viable economies. This makes good sense.
Unfortunately, Congress and the Department of Defense (DOD) expended little thought or planning for the regions across America that would be gaining military and civilian growth. Thus, little federal discussion has been generated regarding the potential negative implications on communities anticipating growth. The “tsunami effect” of sudden unpredictable population increases could have devastating implications for existing community infrastructures and services.
One example will be the significant impact on America’s public schools across growing military regions of the country. At least fifty school divisions in the proximity of twelve expanding military bases are adversely affected. Military families bring with them school-aged children, and no less than 100,000 military children will be enrolling in public schools nationally between 2008-2014. Without the capacity to absorb such large numbers of school-age children, public schools are certain to be overwhelmed.
The Fort Lee communities of Dinwiddie, Petersburg, Prince George, Colonial Heights, Chesterfield and Hopewell will experience the direct impact of increased military, contractors, and civilian defense personnel. All community services will be affected, but none as severely as public schools. According to the 2006 Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Impact Study (EIS) possibly as many as 4,700 new school age children will enter Southside Virginia schools in the next few years around Fort Lee.
The problem isn’t necessarily one of quantity alone. The distribution of students poses some interesting challenges. For example, if twenty-four children enter an elementary school operating at capacity and by chance all are fifth graders, then an investment of $100,000 (cost of a classroom) and $50,000 (cost of a teacher) will be needed. If these children are distributed four at each grade level (K,1,2,3,4,5), then $600,000 (six additional classrooms) and $300,000 (six additional teachers) may be needed. Thus twenty-four children alone could generate an initial investment range of $150,000 to $900,000.
According to recent EIS projections, sixteen new schools may be needed in Southside Virginia. Regional school construction and renovation costs could exceed 750 million dollars. Nationally, this figure rises to about $ 3 billion. Few area schools have the luxury of empty classroom space, and few local budgets have the capacity to hire additional qualified teachers and support staff to address this problem.
In an age of an all-volunteer military designed to defend and protect the interests of the United States against threats of terror, the fabric of the military family itself is at stake in the high-stakes BRAC gamble to uproot families. Compounding this issue are three additional factors: The transition of military forces, global debasing, and the continuing war in Iran and Afghanistan.
Presently, military families are at a high risk of unraveling due in part to the pressures and assignments imposed on them to fight the global war on terror. Military families already post unusually high divorce and separation rates, and recent studies indicated that spousal and child abuse rates soar above national norms. Thus, the “no room at the inn” theme will not play well among uprooted military families attempting to enroll children in the region’s public schools. Would it not be ironic for those serving in the United States military services who fought and sacrificed in the Middle East post-September 11, 2001 era to have another battle on hand when they return home? The battle to enroll their children in overcrowded public schools!
It is imperative that we do everything possible to provide for the quality of military life in communities gaining military families. I have been to Washington dozens of times requesting assistance as a leader of the Seven Rivers Coalition for Military Growth. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense, Department of Education, and even Congress itself appears content to “push the problem downstream”. This is federal speak for “the local taxpayer”. Not one person I met in Washington denies the validity of the problem, nor has one offered any real financial assistance. Perhaps the new administrative team taking office after January 20, 2009 under President Obama will take a pro-active approach to solving this dilemma.
So who really gains from sudden economic development and growth? Should localities be forced to bear all of the expense for new schools? How does this affect the local taxpayer? These questions deserve answers.
The positive impact of an increase in regional economic activity may not be realized for decades or more, and even then money will be needed for additional services such as police, fire, emergency response, human services, hospitals, recreation, and new roads, to name a few. BRAC may have good intentions, but the dark side of this equation could have devastating and lasting negative effects on our schools and communities in the growing years ahead, and especially for children of military dependants.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tax Cuts for Teachers: New York Times
From the New York Times, author Thomas L. Friedman wrote this insightful opinion that I wanted to share with all of our friends in education:
Tax Cuts for Teachers
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They’re each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.
So here’s hoping that our new administration and Congress will be guided in shaping the stimulus by reading John Maynard Keynes in one hand — to get as much money injected as quickly as possible — and by reading “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future” with the other.
“Gathering Storm” was the outstanding 2005 report produced by our National Academies on how to keep America competitive by vastly improving math and science education, investing in long-term research, recruiting top students from abroad and making U.S. laws the most conducive in the world for innovation.
You see, even before the current financial crisis, we were already in a deep competitive hole — a long period in which too many people were making money from money, or money from flipping houses or hamburgers, and too few people were making money by making new stuff, with hard-earned science, math, biology and engineering skills.
The financial crisis just made the hole deeper, which is why our stimulus needs to be both big and smart, both financially and educationally stimulating. It needs to be able to produce not only more shovel-ready jobs and shovel-ready workers, but more Google-ready jobs and Windows-ready and knowledge-ready workers.
If we spend $1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges — and not a new Google, Apple, Intel or Microsoft — your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or mediocre jobs.
Barack Obama gets it, but I’m not sure Congress does. “Yes,” Mr. Obama said on Thursday, “we’ll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools by eliminating the backlog of well-planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects. But we’ll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy.” Sure that means more smart grids and broadband highways, he added, but it also “means investing in the science, research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries and entire new industries.”
But clean-tech projects like intelligent grids and broadband take a long time to implement. Can we stimulate both our economy and our people in time? Maybe rather than just giving everyone a quick $1,500 to hit the mall to buy flat-screen TVs imported from China, or creating those all-important green-collar jobs for low-skilled workers — to put people to work installing solar panels and insulating homes — we should also give everyone who is academically eligible and willing a quick $5,000 to go back to school. Universities today are the biggest employers in many Congressional districts, and they’re all having to downsize.
My wife teaches public school in Montgomery County, Md., where more and more teachers can’t afford to buy homes near the schools where they teach, and now have long, dirty commutes from distant suburbs. One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers. I’d also double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers, staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science — instead of subsidizing their educations and then sending them home — and offer full scholarships to needy students who want to go to a public university or community college for the next four years.
J.F.K. took us to the moon. Let B.H.O. take America back to school.
But that will take time. There’s simply no shortcut for a stimulus that stimulates minds not just salaries. “You can bail out a bank; you can’t bail out a generation,” says the great American inventor, Dean Kamen, who has designed everything from the Segway to artificial limbs. “You can print money, but you can’t print knowledge. It takes 12 years.”
Sure, we’ll waste some money doing that. That will happen with bridges, too. But a bridge is just a bridge. Once it’s up, it stops stimulating. A student who normally would not be interested in science but gets stimulated by a better teacher or more exposure to a lab, or a scientist who gets the funding for new research, is potentially the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They create good jobs for years. Perhaps more bridges can bail us out of a depression, but only more Bills and Steves can bail us into prosperity.
Tax Cuts for Teachers
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They’re each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus — in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig — a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog — our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle — a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus — it will be the opportunity of their lifetimes.
So here’s hoping that our new administration and Congress will be guided in shaping the stimulus by reading John Maynard Keynes in one hand — to get as much money injected as quickly as possible — and by reading “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future” with the other.
“Gathering Storm” was the outstanding 2005 report produced by our National Academies on how to keep America competitive by vastly improving math and science education, investing in long-term research, recruiting top students from abroad and making U.S. laws the most conducive in the world for innovation.
You see, even before the current financial crisis, we were already in a deep competitive hole — a long period in which too many people were making money from money, or money from flipping houses or hamburgers, and too few people were making money by making new stuff, with hard-earned science, math, biology and engineering skills.
The financial crisis just made the hole deeper, which is why our stimulus needs to be both big and smart, both financially and educationally stimulating. It needs to be able to produce not only more shovel-ready jobs and shovel-ready workers, but more Google-ready jobs and Windows-ready and knowledge-ready workers.
If we spend $1 trillion on a stimulus and just get better highways and bridges — and not a new Google, Apple, Intel or Microsoft — your kids will thank you for making it so much easier for them to commute to the unemployment office or mediocre jobs.
Barack Obama gets it, but I’m not sure Congress does. “Yes,” Mr. Obama said on Thursday, “we’ll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools by eliminating the backlog of well-planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects. But we’ll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy.” Sure that means more smart grids and broadband highways, he added, but it also “means investing in the science, research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries and entire new industries.”
But clean-tech projects like intelligent grids and broadband take a long time to implement. Can we stimulate both our economy and our people in time? Maybe rather than just giving everyone a quick $1,500 to hit the mall to buy flat-screen TVs imported from China, or creating those all-important green-collar jobs for low-skilled workers — to put people to work installing solar panels and insulating homes — we should also give everyone who is academically eligible and willing a quick $5,000 to go back to school. Universities today are the biggest employers in many Congressional districts, and they’re all having to downsize.
My wife teaches public school in Montgomery County, Md., where more and more teachers can’t afford to buy homes near the schools where they teach, and now have long, dirty commutes from distant suburbs. One of the smartest stimulus moves we could make would be to eliminate federal income taxes on all public schoolteachers so more talented people would choose these careers. I’d also double the salaries of all highly qualified math and science teachers, staple green cards to the diplomas of foreign students who graduate from any U.S. university in math or science — instead of subsidizing their educations and then sending them home — and offer full scholarships to needy students who want to go to a public university or community college for the next four years.
J.F.K. took us to the moon. Let B.H.O. take America back to school.
But that will take time. There’s simply no shortcut for a stimulus that stimulates minds not just salaries. “You can bail out a bank; you can’t bail out a generation,” says the great American inventor, Dean Kamen, who has designed everything from the Segway to artificial limbs. “You can print money, but you can’t print knowledge. It takes 12 years.”
Sure, we’ll waste some money doing that. That will happen with bridges, too. But a bridge is just a bridge. Once it’s up, it stops stimulating. A student who normally would not be interested in science but gets stimulated by a better teacher or more exposure to a lab, or a scientist who gets the funding for new research, is potentially the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They create good jobs for years. Perhaps more bridges can bail us out of a depression, but only more Bills and Steves can bail us into prosperity.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Funding Cuts Threaten Public Schools in Virginia
State governments across America are reporting record losses in their budgets as the continued economic downturn continues to impact (tax) revenue collections. With less available funding streams many state governments are cutting back essential services and public schools are not immune to these negative economic implications. In Virginia this situation is compounded by the fact that local school boards do not have taxing authority (they do in most other states) and therefore depend upon local appropriating bodies to fund schools. What this means in tough economic times is that Virginia schools typically will take a double hit: a reduction in funding first from the state share of public educational costs, and a second reduction when the local appropriating body (municipal governments) find themselves short of income to fund police, fire, emergency services, mental health services, recreation, roads, parks, etc., and as a consequence reduce school funding accordingly. Thus, school funding in Virginia becomes a dilemma for local school boards as they may expect to experience a dramatic downturn of expected funding from both the state and local governments.
Quality educational programs are not inexpensive and thus every community bears a responsibility to fund a high quality local educational in order to meet state and federal guidelines. Unfortunately, the rising costs of such programs are often "pushed downstream" to the local taxpayer and this very concept of local school funding has been the source of a dozen adequacy and equity lawsuits for more than two decades. Local taxpayers are being asked to more than they are able to in tough economic times and the whole system of educational funding appears to be at serious risk of collapse.
Virginia finds itself in the eye of the storm as current economic conditions not only present compelling challenges but threaten the sustainability of a high quality system of public education for the commonwealth. Why? Let's try to put the current scenario in plain language so our readers will understand the maelstrom that is about to overwhelm public education.
Proposed reductions by Virginia's governor in the Basic Aid school funding formula will have devastating effects in every school division in Virginia, unlike anything any of us have experienced in the past forty years. The finance office of the governor reports these changes as "technical adjustments" and insist they will not have a measurable impact on classroom instruction-but public school superintendents know differently. Every significant reduction in educational funding quickly finds its way to the classroom level. To make matters worse, the Virginia General Assembly appears reluctant to utilize the Revenue Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund) to bolster educational funding...we are not talking about a rainy day here, but a full blown hurricane.
Here's why: Serious reductions to localities (10% - 15% of state support) will result in immediate reductions in teaching positions and teaching related support positions. This in turn will created much larger class sizes and increased teacher-to-pupil ratios. The larger class sizes will disproportionally affect services to our most at-risk children and older disadvantaged students as resources are diminished at all levels. Finally, as school divisions contemplate a reduction in overall instructional time (for example, a movement is underway to consider a four day school week in some states) and the elimination of after-school and summer school programs for underachieving youth who need our help the most.
The core of many school budgets are employee expenses. In fact, our own school budget represents about 78% - 80% for teacher and employee salaries, health insurance, and benefits. If you combine the cost of instruction with operations, maintenance, and student transportation, the portion of the budget for these services is 92% of our budget. The rest is technology (4%), student health services (2%), and administration (2%).
There is little if any to cut from school budgets without seriously affecting what happens in the classroom. In fact, our school division participated in a voluntary state efficiency study just two years ago resulting in a savings of over 1.5 million dollars as the recommended cuts and adjustments were implemented. Now we are asked to cut an additional $3 million from the state share of our budget...our state basic aid contribution is only $26 million overall so the net impact will be an additional 12% loss of revenue. This type of deep cut will regrettably cause a reduction in the teaching force and other dramatic measures.
In difficult economic times the families we serve that live at or below the poverty line are most vulnerable. Many of them operate on the survival mode and the children of at-risk families often depend on public schools as the only source of stability in their lives. Schools provide many additional support services to identified special needs children that may have to be reduced to some extent due to budget restraints. Just a few additional children per classroom across our schools could have a negative impact on the delivery of basic services as children in large classes often loose their individual identity and must compete for the attention of an often overwhelmed teacher. In fact, research indicates that there is a strong correlation between low class size and increased student achievement, something we have been able to provide in Virginia over the years that contributes to the overall success of all our schools in this era of standardized tests and federal regulations.
We ask that our state government leaders consider the implications of severe and sudden reductions to school funding. State leaders could preserve school funding by:
1. not applying any permanent cuts to the state basic aid funding formula
2. restore the $85 million lottery construction fund and school construction grant program
3. use the Revenue Stabilization Fund in both 2009 and 2010 to reduce cuts to education
4. reduce or eliminate unnecessary testing mandates (both state and local).
(Note: The state could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars by suspending mandatory testing requirements at all current grade levels until economic times turn better.)
In conclusion, public education is an essential service, not an optional one. An educated, adaptive, vibrant and competitive workforce is directly connected to producing a strong economy. Diminishing support for a high-quality system of public education therefore has a diminishing return on the future workforce in Virginia, further depressing future economic conditions. This is the absolute wrong time to reduce support for educational funding. Every citizen needs to implore state lawmakers to preserve educational funding at current levels and not place in jeopardy Virginia's most precious resource: her children.
Quality educational programs are not inexpensive and thus every community bears a responsibility to fund a high quality local educational in order to meet state and federal guidelines. Unfortunately, the rising costs of such programs are often "pushed downstream" to the local taxpayer and this very concept of local school funding has been the source of a dozen adequacy and equity lawsuits for more than two decades. Local taxpayers are being asked to more than they are able to in tough economic times and the whole system of educational funding appears to be at serious risk of collapse.
Virginia finds itself in the eye of the storm as current economic conditions not only present compelling challenges but threaten the sustainability of a high quality system of public education for the commonwealth. Why? Let's try to put the current scenario in plain language so our readers will understand the maelstrom that is about to overwhelm public education.
Proposed reductions by Virginia's governor in the Basic Aid school funding formula will have devastating effects in every school division in Virginia, unlike anything any of us have experienced in the past forty years. The finance office of the governor reports these changes as "technical adjustments" and insist they will not have a measurable impact on classroom instruction-but public school superintendents know differently. Every significant reduction in educational funding quickly finds its way to the classroom level. To make matters worse, the Virginia General Assembly appears reluctant to utilize the Revenue Stabilization Fund (Rainy Day Fund) to bolster educational funding...we are not talking about a rainy day here, but a full blown hurricane.
Here's why: Serious reductions to localities (10% - 15% of state support) will result in immediate reductions in teaching positions and teaching related support positions. This in turn will created much larger class sizes and increased teacher-to-pupil ratios. The larger class sizes will disproportionally affect services to our most at-risk children and older disadvantaged students as resources are diminished at all levels. Finally, as school divisions contemplate a reduction in overall instructional time (for example, a movement is underway to consider a four day school week in some states) and the elimination of after-school and summer school programs for underachieving youth who need our help the most.
The core of many school budgets are employee expenses. In fact, our own school budget represents about 78% - 80% for teacher and employee salaries, health insurance, and benefits. If you combine the cost of instruction with operations, maintenance, and student transportation, the portion of the budget for these services is 92% of our budget. The rest is technology (4%), student health services (2%), and administration (2%).
There is little if any to cut from school budgets without seriously affecting what happens in the classroom. In fact, our school division participated in a voluntary state efficiency study just two years ago resulting in a savings of over 1.5 million dollars as the recommended cuts and adjustments were implemented. Now we are asked to cut an additional $3 million from the state share of our budget...our state basic aid contribution is only $26 million overall so the net impact will be an additional 12% loss of revenue. This type of deep cut will regrettably cause a reduction in the teaching force and other dramatic measures.
In difficult economic times the families we serve that live at or below the poverty line are most vulnerable. Many of them operate on the survival mode and the children of at-risk families often depend on public schools as the only source of stability in their lives. Schools provide many additional support services to identified special needs children that may have to be reduced to some extent due to budget restraints. Just a few additional children per classroom across our schools could have a negative impact on the delivery of basic services as children in large classes often loose their individual identity and must compete for the attention of an often overwhelmed teacher. In fact, research indicates that there is a strong correlation between low class size and increased student achievement, something we have been able to provide in Virginia over the years that contributes to the overall success of all our schools in this era of standardized tests and federal regulations.
We ask that our state government leaders consider the implications of severe and sudden reductions to school funding. State leaders could preserve school funding by:
1. not applying any permanent cuts to the state basic aid funding formula
2. restore the $85 million lottery construction fund and school construction grant program
3. use the Revenue Stabilization Fund in both 2009 and 2010 to reduce cuts to education
4. reduce or eliminate unnecessary testing mandates (both state and local).
(Note: The state could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars by suspending mandatory testing requirements at all current grade levels until economic times turn better.)
In conclusion, public education is an essential service, not an optional one. An educated, adaptive, vibrant and competitive workforce is directly connected to producing a strong economy. Diminishing support for a high-quality system of public education therefore has a diminishing return on the future workforce in Virginia, further depressing future economic conditions. This is the absolute wrong time to reduce support for educational funding. Every citizen needs to implore state lawmakers to preserve educational funding at current levels and not place in jeopardy Virginia's most precious resource: her children.
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