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Green says 70 percent of K-12 funds should go into classroom Put less money into school administration and more into the classroom is the proposal being made by the Republican candidate for governor.
"Taxpayer dollars should be targeted at children and classrooms - not bureaucrats and buildings," said Green. According to Green's announcement, these instruction or instruction-related costs would include salaries for teacher, instructional aides, librarians, textbooks, curriculum development, athletic programs and co-curricular activities. Not included would be administrative salaries, transportation costs, food service operations and debt service. "An increase of this size for classroom spending would allow school districts across the state to hire a total of at least 4,643 new teachers, or purchase an additional 245,833 computers," Green said. His plan would also help those districts that fail to meet the goal. Districts that fail to meet the 70 percent goal would have to create a plan to get back above the threshold. Districts could also petition the governor for a one-year waiver if they don't think they can make the target. If a district doesn't get a waiver and fails to meet the 70 percent goal after two years they would lose funds in the amount of the difference between what they actually put into the classroom and the 70 percent total. However, for districts can not use a levy to make up the amount of state aid lost. Green says his plan would also give complete control to local officials in how they reach the 70 percent. School districts would still have to follow all state mandates, according to Luke Punzenberger, Green's spokesman. "Those mandates are included in the other 30 percent," said Punzenberger. The plan is very similar to a proposal called "First Class Education" which was introduced in the state Legislature this year by Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and backed by Sen. Ron Brown, R-Eau Claire. Harsdorf's plan would have required 65 percent of all K-12 funds be put into the classroom. But that bill never made it through the Senate. No action was made on Harsdorf's plan before the end of the legislative session. Both Harsdorf and Brown say they'll re-introduce the measure in the next session. |
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U.S. Rep. Mark Green, Green Bay, announced his plan Monday that would require all K-12 public schools in Wisconsin to spend 70 percent of all their funds on instruction.
