First Round Results in School Funding Debate: Blunt Wins Big over Education Establishment
December 6th, 2005
JEFFERSON CITY – After comparing Governor Matt Blunt’s plans for more classroom funding with three weeks of attacks by school administrators, 77 percent of Missourians would vote ‘Yes’ for the Blunt plan.
“This is a landslide, and it is a tremendous tribute to the common sense of the people of Missouri,” John Hancock said of the survey results. The survey memorandum on results is attached.
“The context of this survey was quite challenging for the Governor. First, on November 4, a month ago, people heard the Blunt plan for adding $271 million to classroom budgets, without new taxes. Then, people received three straight weeks of distorted attacks and complaints from several of our very, very well-paid administrators, liberal editorial pages, unbalanced news stories, and Jay Nixon and other pro-tax Democrats. When it was over, the Blunt ‘65%’ Plan won in a landslide.”
Blunt’s plan is for school budgets to commit no less than 65% of their resources to direct classroom teaching, up from a state average of 6?% presently. By redirecting some funds from administrative pay and other non-teaching uses, the plan would provide classrooms with an estimated $271 million in new funds, or more than $6,000 annually for a class with 20 students, with no new taxes.
In making the case for his plan, the Governor has pointed to Missouri’s terrible standing in pay for classroom teachers, which is among the lowest in the U.S., ranking 44th or 45th in two widely used national surveys. Only one adjoining state, Oklahoma, pays less to the teachers who do the real work of education.
At the same time, six-figure salaries and extensive benefits for some top administrators have become common. Since the early 1990s, by state agency data, an average school superintendent has gotten $3 in higher pay to each $1 for an average classroom teacher. Thus, as education funding has grown, classroom spending and teacher pay have lost ground to spending on the most highly paid employees, “central office” needs, and other non-classroom uses.
Under Blunt’s predecessor, Gov. Holden, the problem became especially vivid when Holden used cuts in school aid to cover higher spending for social welfare programs. As the Associated Press reported in February 2004, more than 150 school systems raised their administrative spending while cutting classroom teaching.
