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Veteran teacher Kenneth Bernstein teaches government at Eleanor Roosevelt High in Greenbelt MD and writes regularly (as “teacherken”) on education, national policy and other topics for the popular political blog DailyKos.

A member of the Teacher Leaders Network, Ken achieved National Board Certification (social studies/history) in 2005. Last fall, he was among a small group of teachers selected by the New York Times to contribute to the group blog Lesson Plans.

This is the first in a series of four guest blogs on schools and the financial crisis that we will publish in the coming days. Stay tuned later today for a contribution from National Board Certified teacher Anthony Cody.

I teach Government. I am also a political junkie. Thus I spend a lot of time reading, talking, thinking and writing about politics, the economy and, lately, the stimulus. I teach in one state (Maryland), live in another where I am political active (Virginia), and spend too much time around politicians on Capitol Hill. And here’s what I think.

Our schools are in crisis, and that has NOTHING to do with test scores or No Child Left Behind. The failure of our government to properly oversee the various financial derivatives has led to a financial meltdown that potentially could destroy our public schools. Consider these facts.

1. Most local governments get the bulk of their revenue from real estate taxes. The current financial crisis began with the collapse of the housing market, a collapse fueled both by sub-prime mortgages that often put people into houses they could not afford, and the securitizing of the paper through credit debt swaps, securitized mortgage tranches, and other arcane financial instruments. A member of the House Financial Services Committee pointed out that the paper flowing from all of this might total as much as $60 trillion dollars (when the total value of American real estate is perhaps 1/6 that amount), a sum greater than the total GDP of the world. Local governments were already financially stressed by last year’s skyrocketing of fuel prices (school buses, anyone?). With house prices collapsing, the funding available for schools is leading to teachers losing jobs (which will lead to more home foreclosures), with a concomitant impact upon instruction and learning in increasingly overcrowded classrooms.
2. States are in financial crisis as people lose jobs, as corporations have losses instead of profits, as fewer cars and houses are sold, as all sources of state revenue begin to shrink at exactly the time when more people need and qualify for services (unemployment, Medicaid, etc.). States are therefore slashing the money they provide local school authorities, at precisely the time when those local school authorities are seeing a simultaneous loss of local revenues. In Virginia, where I live, the proposed cuts to state aid for schools are in the hundreds of millions, eliminating support for things like counselors and school nurses. The Governor promises that no school will lose more than the equivalent of $400/student, but for a district like King George which spends only $8,103/student, that is a potentially devastating cut. I live in a county (Arlington) which in FY2007 spent $20,263/student, so that cut will not have as severe an impact. Maryland is equally impacted. Remember, most Governors have to balance their budgets by law, as do most local governments.

There is a lot of money for education in the proposed stimulus package. Some argue that it is inappropriate, because it will not lead to creating new jobs (while they ignore the fact that it may well save quite a few jobs). Others accuse those advocating for including funds for education in the stimulus of trying to gain dollars for their pet projects. Advocates are also accused of ignoring those (including the editorial boards of major national newspapers) who insist that any additional funds for education be contingent upon continuation of the regimen of No Child Left Behind -- even though some of the original advocates of No Child Left Behind now acknowledge that it has failed to meet any of its major goals.

I look at the education provisions in the Stimulus, formally named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, as passed by the House of Representatives, and I find much that is either stimulative in creating news jobs, protecting local governments from severe layoffs, or (finally) fulfilling unmet federal responsibilities. Let me give an example of each.

Stimulative in creating new jobs - As one can read on the website of the House Committee on Education and Labor, the House version:

Invests $20 billion to modernize schools and colleges, including facility repairs, updating technology, and making facilities more energy-efficient. According to estimates, this will create more than 200,000 new jobs in the construction, energy, technology, and other industries.

Protecting local government – again, from the website of the House Committee on Education and Labor:

Provides $79 billion state stabilization fund to help prevent education-related layoffs and restore harmful cuts to education funding, including $25 billion for states and local governments to meet needs in public safety, health and other critical public services.

Fulfilling unmet federal responsibilities - Here I won’t discuss how the previous administration never fully funded No Child Left Behind. Let’s consider something far more ancient. When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed in 1975 (originally titled the Education For All Handicapped Children Act or PL-94-142, and renamed in 1990), the Federal share of the average additional costs was supposed to reach 40% by Fiscal Year 1982. The highest it has ever reached, to this point, was in FY 2005, when the Feds paid 18.5% of the Average Per Pupil Expenditure of IDEA Part B. Because of a political campaign in which I was involved in 2006, I know that for Virginia that represented a shortfall of about $350 million. Remember that IDEA legislatively establishes rights that must be met by states and local districts, by doing one of three things: (1) raising their own local taxes; (2) cutting general education funds and shifting the monies to meet the special education needs required by the law; or (3) being in violation of the law by not meeting the requirements of fully serving those covered by IDEA. The administration proposal for this item was an additional $13 billion over two years ($6 billion in FY 2009 and $7 billion in FY 2010), adding to the $11.5 billion previously projected for FY2009. While this would only raise the Federal share to around 28-29% by FY 2010, it would substantially ease the financial burdens on those schools attempting to meet the mandates, and enable them to apply the state/local dollars freed up by these long-overdue federal funds to other educational purposes.

Our schools are in crisis. A large part of that crisis is financial, caused by the distress in the economy. Some decision makers are tempted to cut funding for schools. That would be shortsighted, harming our students, and damaging our attempts to improve our public schools. It also would cost jobs, because the cost of running schools is largely salaries. The stimulus should help prevent that from happening. At least, that’s the viewpoint from this teacher.