State: School funds on the move for new law

The statistics, legislators thought, told a sad story: Compared with other Southern states, Florida comes in dead last in the percentage of money spent directly in the classroom. Compared with other Southern states, particularly Texas, Florida students don't do so hot on standardized tests.

The answer was a new law, the "Dollars to the Classroom Act," requiring school districts that don't meet minimum academic standards to channel more money into the classroom. According to the state's calculations, 52 of 67 school districts, including four of five around Tampa Bay, failed one or more of the standards and have to change their spending habits.

The exercise has reinvigorated a debate with no clear answers: What makes a classroom successful?

Is it only the teachers and books and computers? Or is it technology specialists, reading specialists, guidance counselors and librarians who work hands-on with students every day? Is it the janitors who keep bathrooms clean? Is it the bus drivers who get students to class on time?

In crafting the law, legislators defined "classroom" as teachers, teacher aides, materials and computers -- but left out the salaries of all those other people. They envisioned that districts would use the mandate to raise teacher salaries to a competitive level, invent programs to help struggling students, lower class size or invest in computers. They left it up to districts how to find the money but hoped administration would be chopped.

"In a world of limited resources, you have to prioritize what you spend," said House Fiscal Responsibility Chairman Carlos Lacasa, R-Miami. "For me the priority is the person who is delivering the services, and that's the teacher."

That, school district officials say, is not entirely the case. They worry that a law crafted with good intentions threatens to hurt student achievement rather than help.

Many districts are cutting support services, not administration, to pay their share. Some are doing nothing more than giving teachers a onetime $850 bonus payment required this year by the state.

Where's the research, they wonder, suggesting that the only way to improve test scores is to focus limited resources in the classroom at the expense of other services?

"Teachers are being asked to do more and more in the classroom," said Starla Metz, principal of Fuguitt Elementary School in Largo, which had to cut a technology specialist and trim the hours for a literacy specialist. "Our children come to us with more than academic needs. The more ideas and support people can give teachers, the better."

The state figured how much money each district had to put in the classroom by calculating a grade for each school level -- elementary, middle and high. Those grades were compared with the state median; each time a district's grade falls below the line, it must put 1 percent of its operating budget in the classroom program.

School districts also can be penalized an additional 1 percent if they hold back more students than the state average. Some educators said that conflicts with earlier state mandates to end social promotion.

Around the state, budget officials are just beginning to understand the impact of the new law as they prepare their 2001-02 budgets. Locally, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Citrus counties have to direct more money into the classroom. Only Hernando does not.

Pinellas must redirect more than $11-million, and Hillsborough's total could be $18-million. Pasco expects to pay just under $2-million, and Citrus will spend $3.2-million, or 3 percent of its operating budget.

"The theory was we were going to take faceless bureaucrats sitting on their butts in the county office drinking coffee and having meetings back into the classroom," said Jade Moore, executive director of the Pinellas teachers union. But that's not happening. "You don't see people moving wholesale from the district level to the school level. The people in the county office are the ones who make decisions."

In Hillsborough, cuts are being made in schools and in district offices to fund the mandate and other needs, and it's still not set in stone how it will be accomplished. Citrus already had budgeted the required dollars, which will be used for teacher raises and some after-school programs.

In Pasco, officials aren't sure where the money is coming from but say it will be used for teacher salaries and lowering class sizes in some elementary grades. Chief financial officer Chuck Rushe said those improvements would have been made without the new law.

"This just seems like another approach to essentially say that too many school districts are spending too much on administrative," Rushe said. "The reason they're saying that is because they won't find the money to fund education."

Administrators defend themselves by saying only a small chunk of the money not spent in the classroom is administration. Which means that to find money for the classroom forces some cuts of people and services that support the classroom.

"There's a generally held perception that everyone who's not in the classroom is in the district administration building," said Jim Hamilton, Hillsborough's deputy superintendent for instructional support. "Quite frankly, that's far, far from the case. Most of the non-classroom dollars are in the school."

To find $11.2-million to redirect into the classroom, Pinellas County told schools and district departments to cut their budgets. At the district level, that meant leaving some jobs open, but no person was actually fired.

Some schools cut jobs that don't directly affect students' daily lives, such as office clerks. But others grudgingly got rid of people who aren't certified as teachers but act to help teachers and their students.

In Pinellas, class sizes won't be smaller. How could the county do that, Superintendent Howard Hinesley asked. The state is telling districts to cut back on using portables, so where would all of these new classes go?

About half of Pinellas' required boost comes from putting 79 people who had district assignments back into the classroom. Some programs, like those for struggling readers, will be expanded.

The other half is the $850 onetime bonus every county is required to give to teachers -- an amount that's not nearly enough to make Florida teacher salaries competitive with neighboring states.

So will students returning to school next month see classrooms that are wildly -- or even marginally -- improved over last spring because of this law?

"In my judgment they're not," Hinesley said. "Just the definition for indirect spending, in my opinion, needs to be reviewed."

Pinellas has long prided itself on the amount of money it spends in the classroom.

Its goal is to spend 63 percent of its budget on instruction, but even that number can be misleading. The other 37 includes a wide range of services that support schools, including maintenance, transportation, school-based administration and instructional support.

How does Pinellas compare to other districts in Florida? Comparisons are imprecise because districts can classify their employees in different ways to make their administrative costs look smaller.

By its own calculations, Pinellas looks pretty good. Districts report their numbers to the state, which compiles an annual comparison.

In the most recent report, about 0.89 percent of Pinellas' operating budget was in general administration. That's higher than the state average, which is 0.67 percent.

Pinellas had 62.9 percent of its operating budget spent in the classroom, with only four districts ranked higher: Seminole, Collier, Brevard and Palm Beach, with the most at 65.5 percent. In the report, the state average was 61 percent of operating costs in the classroom.

In Sandra Leanes' view, Pinellas was better off before the Legislature passed a law telling Pinellas it needed to spend even more in the classroom.

"When you look at it, the intentions, it all sounds good," said Leanes, principal of Plumb Elementary School in Clearwater, which gave up some reading instruction and cleaning services. "It doesn't work out that way."

- Times researchers Caryn Baird and Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

If you go

The Pinellas County School Board will hold a public hearing on the 2001-02 budget at 7 p.m. Tuesday at district headquarters, 301 Fourth St. SW in Largo.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk