By Fred Nathan
The debate about how Santa Fe Public Schools should closeits $6.9 million budget deficit presents a good opportunity to start thinkingdifferently about how we deliver education in our public schools.
So far the discussion has centered on proposals likeincreasing class sizes, slashing arts and physical education, and consolidatingseveral of the district's smaller neighborhood K-6 schools.
While these approaches may close the deficit, they will alsocertainly lower student achievement and performance, which is the true bottomline for our public schools.
Think New Mexico would like to propose a better way to closethe deficit which would minimize cuts to the classroom and which would also giveevery child the opportunity to learn in a small school.
Let's start with smaller schools. Some have argued that becausemany students in Santa Fe are stuck in large schools, the school board should –"out of fairness" – close the district's small schools, many of themhigh-performing, and establish larger, consolidated schools in their place.
Think New Mexico's approach, which is designed to improve studentachievement, would be to do exactly the opposite and instead shrink Santa Fe's largerelementary schools, like Piñon, Sweeney, and Cesar Chavez. Those schools havepopulations of 755, 670 and 598, respectively, and the students in thoseschools desperately need and deserve the opportunity to learn in a smallelementary school (defined as 400 students or fewer, based on a comprehensivereview of the research).
Think New Mexico surveyed the current enrollments andcapacities of each of the K-6 schools in Santa Fe and discovered that if wemoved 1,155 students out of the seven largest K-6 schools, we could reduce theirschool populations to 400 students each. Fortunately, there are at least 1,151spaces available elsewhere in the district if we use our facilities creatively.
For example, four hundred spaces are available in the formerAlameda Middle School, now sitting empty, and another 400 are available at AmyBiehl, the new elementary school that Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez and theschool board have commendably pushed to open in order to relieve some of the district'sovercrowding. In addition, four existing smaller schools, Atalaya, CarlosGilbert, Kaune, and Nava have the capacity to absorb 351 more students betweenthem without exceeding 400 students.
This plan recognizes the value of smaller schools and keeps eachof them open. In fact, closing and consolidating smaller schools contradictsover three decades of research, such as researcher Kathleen Cotton's 1996 meta-reviewof 49 studies that examined the relationship between school size and studentperformance. Cotton's review found that students in smaller schools are morelikely to advance to the next grade level and less likely to feel alienated ordisengaged from school. Perhaps most important, it found that students from themost disadvantaged backgrounds demonstrate improved academic performance insmaller schools.
We would respectfully challenge the district's estimatesthat closing and consolidating four small schools would save approximately $1million. The district's projected "savings" from closing small schools are based,in part, on rosy assumptions about how much someone would be willing to pay tolease heavily-used school buildings. (Meanwhile, Manderfield, which closed in2007, continues to stand empty because no one has been willing to lease it.)
These doubtful savings contrast with the very real recurringdollars that SFPS will lose if small schools are closed. New Mexico's publicschool funding formula contains a positive adjustment for smaller schools. Thisschool year, the small school funding boost provided an additional $419,983 forAcequia Madre, Alvord, Kaune, and Larragoite – dollars that will disappear ifthe district closes those schools. Consolidation of small schools therefore doesnot close the budget deficit, but rather exacerbates it.
Now let's look at the budget deficit. Here are five suggestedareas for savings that would minimize cuts to the classroom:
%uFFFD ReduceAdministrative Costs: Superintendent Gutierrez has courageously presented severaladministrative cuts to the school board, including board per diem and travel,that the board should adopt because those at the top need to lead by example andshare in the sacrifices. We delivered a letter to Superintendent Gutierrez on Mondayrecommending additional administrative cuts, like a 5% furlough for the 54administrative personnel at the central office. Estimated total savings: $1.2million.
%uFFFD Lay Off SomeDouble Dippers: The district employs as many as 65 “double dippers,”employees who retired and returned to work earning both a salary and a pension.Albuquerque Public Schools plans to save $5 million by eliminating 176 doubledippers. Estimated savings from replacing fewer than half of the double dippersin SFPS with new employees with smaller salaries and benefits: $750,000.
%uFFFD CutContract Services: In thebudget category “other contract services,” Santa Fe Public Schools spent $2.457million in 2008-2009, the last year for which we know the actual budget expenditures.This was significantly higher than other, similarly sized school districts inNew Mexico, like Rio Rancho, Las Cruces and Gadsden, each of which has morestudents and spent less than $374,905 on “other contract services” in 2008-2009.The “other contract services” attributed to general administration (i.e., thesuperintendent, executive administration, and community and federal relations),rather than to instruction, was $925,000 in Santa Fe – higher even thanAlbuquerque’s $285,000. Estimated savings: $2.05 million.
%uFFFD TrimOvertime: Santa Fe spentsignificantly more than similarly-sized districts on overtime and “additionalcompensation” (like stipends and bonuses) in 2008-2009. Santa Fe’s overtimecosts were approximately $685,000, over five times higher than Gadsden or LasCruces. (Rio Rancho reported no overtime costs.) Additional compensationtotaled $2.7 million in Santa Fe in 2008-2009, or $1.5 million higher than theaverage of Gadsden, Rio Rancho, and Las Cruces. Estimated Savings: $2 million.
%uFFFD LowerEnergy Costs: In 2008-2009 the Santa Fe Public Schools spent approximately $1.5million on electricity costs. But if the district used some of its one-timecapital dollars to install solar panels on its schools and facilities, oradopted other innovative energy efficiency strategies like Albuquerque and RioRancho, Santa Fe could significantly reduce its recurring energy costs. Estimatedsavings: $750,000.
We encourage Santa Fe Public Schools to turn adversity toadvantage by using this budget deficit as an opportunity to save dollars whileimproving education by making small, high-quality schools accessible to all ofSanta Fe's children.
Fred Nathan isExecutive Director of Think New Mexico, an independent, results-oriented thinktank serving New Mexicans. To learn more about the advantages of smaller schools,please go to: www.thinknewmexico.org.
