THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010015
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By GARY E. MILLER
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
Like many other citizens of Virginia Beach, I am deeply concerned with the fiscal problems facing our school system. The apparent lack of careful management of public funds allocated for our youngsters is inexcusable. However, we must be aware that the so-called overspending which has occurred during the past two school years is the code-blue alert for a system that is in extreme need of immediate care.
As a 44-year resident of Princess Anne County/Virginia Beach, I have 34 years of experience with our community's school system, 12 of those years as a student and 22 as a teacher. Our community has undergone incredible change during my lifetime. Slow-paced county life has been replaced by the rapid pulse of an urban area with a population approaching a half-million. A simple culture, with its members possessing similar characteristics, is now full of complexities and rich diversity. The needs of our school system's customers have changed just as dramatically as the landscape.
Yet, one thing that has remained constant during this period is the attitude and actions regarding the funding of our educational system. Our school system has always accomplished more with less. Occasionally, this has even been reason for some of our civic and educational leaders to boast.
In spite of its rapid growth, our community has been perceived to maintain a high-quality school system. For the past 20 years, the school system has succeeded without spending even the state average operational cost on each pupil. Amazingly, in some years, end-of-the-year money was returned to the city. If we relate this history to a grading scale, we have worked with the equivalent of a ``D'' grade in educational funding but have maintained by most measures an ``A'' grade in system performance. Our past level of performance is a true testimony to the dedication, motivation, selflessness and professionalism of school-system employees, students, parents and community volunteers.
Have we accomplished the best that our city could afford? I think not. I wonder what could have been accomplished educationally if our school system's students had been provided with a level of funding equal to the state average per-pupil operation cost. How many more dropouts could we have prevented? How much more could students in regular education classes have learned if they had been taught in smaller classes? How many more students with special needs could we have identified and provided for? Have we truly provided an educational setting which has allowed each of our children to become everything they could possibly be?
Unfortunately, the answer to all of these questions is no, and the situation is getting worse each year. Our educational heritage of doing more with less has become the perception of many citizens and a cornerstone of our city's fiscal policy.
In conducting research to support my view, I discovered some alarming statistics. A simple comparison of the per-pupil operation costs in Virginia Beach and the United States fully illustrates the problem. In every school year, from 1974-1975 through 1993-1994, Virginia Beach has spent less than the average expenditure for school divisions in the commonwealth. For 19 of those 20 school years (figures were unavailable for `93-`94), Virginia Beach has spent less than the national average expenditure. What is even more disheartening, during 13 years of that period, Virginia Beach ranked in the bottom 20 out of more than 130 Virginia school divisions' per-pupil operational costs.
I hope community members and community leaders will find this hard data as shocking as I did. I further hope that we will move immediately to correct this obstacle that prevents our city from providing an environment which allows each of our children the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. We cannot fully meet the educational needs of our young citizens by continuing to deny them the resources necessary for a sound, complete education.
We must immediately solve the financial-oversight issues facing our school division. We must adopt a sound fiscal policy which places our students' needs above politics. We must also provide better-than-average funding for our school system, even if it means a greater tax burden for our community.
Virginia Beach once had a school system that was second to none in Virginia and one of the best in the United States. Recently, this prominence has greatly and rapidly diminished due mainly to two decades of financial malnutrition. Doing something about preventing future loss will not be easy, but it can and must be done. MEMO: Mr. Miller is a resident of Virginia Beach. by CNB