WI State Journal article on SAGE

Folks,

This is a very lengthy but informative article that was in the Madison WI State Journal last year about the SAGE program. I hope that you will take the time to read it and understand the complexities of the program and its costs to local districts. The upcoming ECASD decision about SAGE funding is irrevocable and will change the classroom sizes for nearly 900 kindergarten through 3rd grade students in some of the schools that have high numbers of economically "at risk" students.

Maria

RI., FEB 9, 2007 - 5:31 PM
Squeezing Schools Part 1: Financial crunch takes its toll; lauded
program loses ground
ANDY HALL


Citing a lack of money, increasing numbers of Wisconsin schools are
pulling out of a state program credited with boosting the scores of
vulnerable poor and minority students.

The number of schools in the Student Achievement Guarantee in
Education (SAGE) program has fallen 17 percent in six years, and many
of the 480 remaining SAGE schools are struggling to retain the program
because state payments have failed to keep pace with rising costs, a
Wisconsin State Journal review shows.



The SAGE pullouts across the state come even as poverty rates are
rising among the elementary students whom experts say can benefit most
from the program's small classes. The cuts are also among the first
indications that class size is being sacrificed to balance budgets,
the State Journal found in an analysis of the effects of the state's
school funding system.

Educators across the state are engaging in their annual ritual of
paring programs to conform to state financial limits - part of a
chaotic system that this year stands its greatest chance of reform in
more than a decade.

Compared to past reductions in music programs and other elective
classes and activities, the reductions in SAGE pose a more direct
threat to thousands of students who need their teachers' attention -
the kind of help that can only come in a small class.

SAGE classrooms allot 15 students per teacher in kindergarten through
third grade. When the program is dropped, class sizes often rise about
50 percent, to 22 or 23 students.



Research on SAGE's impact is far from definitive, but a 2004 study of
students' performance in reading, language arts and mathematics test
scores in the first 50 SAGE schools found the program "had a
significant cumulative effect from the beginning of first grade
through third grade in all three content areas."

The study found evidence that gains were higher among low-income
students and African-American students. Yet researchers were puzzled
by indications that gains in the earliest years of school weren't
sustained in fourth grade and called for more study.

A growing amount of research also suggests that class- size reductions
alone may not be effective unless combined with improved curriculum
and training of teachers.

"I believe very deeply in small classes," said Democratic Gov. Jim
Doyle, who complained that the Republican- controlled Legislature
defeated his attempt two years ago to significantly expand SAGE
funding. Partisan control is now split after November's elections.
"There's no doubt what the positive effects of SAGE have been."

Madison's options

Beginning this month, the Madison School Board is reluctantly
considering reductions in SAGE and other programs that keep classes
sizes small.

Madison educators, whose district has received national attention for
raising the achievement levels of many low-income and minority
students, say they must cut an estimated $10.5 million from current
services to balance next year's budget.

They're studying options that could trim as much as $2.4 million by
scaling back class- size reductions, which currently benefit 95
percent of the district's low-income students but might reach less
than 70 percent in some plans.

"This is the year when things really get tough," Madison School Board
President Johnny Winston Jr. said.

The problem spans the state.

"We may drop SAGE in the future," administrators at the tiny Niagara
School District, 225 miles northeast of Madison, wrote in a recent
report to officials in Wisconsin's education agency, the Department of
Public Instruction.

"In order to keep this school open, we will look to larger classes
with less teachers than we have now."

Janesville school officials already have scaled back their commitment
to SAGE, keeping just two of five schools in the program.

"We do not receive enough dollars from the state to hire extra
teaching staff required," Janesville's Jefferson Elementary School
officials warned state officials before dropping out of the program
this year.

The Baraboo School District, 40 miles northwest of Madison, pulled a
school out of SAGE three years ago.

"Our community couldn't afford SAGE," said District Administrator
Lance Alwin, who since has been driven by rising local poverty rates
to seek readmittance to the program - something not possible under
current state practices.

The Phillips School District, about 225 miles northwest of Madison,
withdrew its Catawba Elementary from SAGE, although nearly 6 in 10
students live in low-income households.

"It's one of the last things they cut," said Tony Evers, deputy state
superintendent of public instruction.

Fragile population

During the dropoff in schools' SAGE participation, the concentration
of students considered low-income has risen statewide from about 1 in
4 to 1 in 3. That fragile population is defined by eligibility for
free and reduced-cost lunches.

In the current school year, 1 in 6 low-income Wisconsin students
attends a SAGE school. The number of low-income students attending
SAGE schools is a record 48,527, owing to the growing poverty rates in
schools. But overall enrollment at SAGE schools is 92,365, down 8
percent from its peak.

"Unfortunately, we'll see the results of that in student achievement,"
predicted Julie Underwood, dean of the UW- Madison School of
Education, who praised SAGE for helping raise performance in
Wisconsin. "The years the kids didn't receive that type of treatment,
their achievement scores are going to go down."

The reductions in SAGE dramatize the painful mismatches that
characterize Wisconsin's system of paying for schools:

A measure known as revenue caps, or revenue limits, determines how
much money school districts can raise from a combination of state aids
and local property taxes. Revenue caps have grown at an average rate
of about 2.4 percent per year. The starting point was based on what
each district happened to spend per pupil in the 1993-94 school year,
and the measure was originally intended as a short-term attempt to
hold down runaway property taxes - not as a pillar of the state's
school-finance system.

A separate measure, known as the QEO or qualified economic offer,
requires districts to award teachers an annual increase of 3.8 percent
in combined salaries and benefits to avoid arbitration. That increase,
in turn, sets the pace for district employees' overall increases in
salaries and benefits. That compensation accounts for about 82 percent
of education spending, up from 71 percent in 1993.

Districts have little control over increases in other expenses such as
gasoline and utilities, yet the state's funding methods fail to fully
compensate for the added costs.

Districts' revenue limits are based upon a three-year average of their
enrollment levels, and more than 60 percent of Wisconsin's 425
districts are experiencing enrollment declines.

Revenues tend to fall faster than districts can cut expenses. For
example, when an enrollment decline of 25 students is spread across
all grade levels, it's difficult for district officials to eliminate a
single teacher to make up for the lost revenue, and such expenses as
bus routes and utilities aren't reduced.

The gap between districts' revenue and their expenses has widened each
year since 1994. The gap between the growth in the revenue cap and QEO
now stands at 18.8 percentage points, a State Journal analysis shows.

Never-ending cycle

The revenue caps and QEO are transforming the operations of public
schools, pushing school officials and the public into a never-ending
cycle of cuts, compromises and referendums.

Most districts reduced the number of academic courses, laid off school
support staff and reduced programs for students at the highest risk of
failure, according to a survey of 278 superintendents during the
2004-05 school year by groups representing administrators and
teachers.

Public schools, the most expensive single program in Wisconsin,
account for about 40 cents of every dollar spent out of the state's
general fund.

In the old days, school boards wanting more money for school
operations could simply raise taxes, and risk retribution from voters
if they went too far.

Revenue caps stripped school boards of that power, requiring them
instead to seek the permission of voters in ballot questions.

"We're literally governing by referendum," complained Nancy
Hendrickson, superintendent of the Pecatonica Area School District in
Blanchardville, 35 miles southwest of Madison.

Pecatonica voters approved referendums in 2000 and 2004 and likely
will be asked in 2008 to support a third ballot measure.

Statewide, voters approved 428 referendums and rejected 471 since
2000, state Department of Public Instruction records show.

The budget shortfalls are intensified by two additional mismatches:

Government-mandated programs, such as special education and help for
students with limited English proficiency, require school districts to
provide certain services, but the funding matches just a fraction of
the cost - about 30 percent in the case of special education students.

Funding for many state education programs, such as SAGE, has failed to
keep up with inflation and growth in demand. SAGE schools receive
$2,000 per year in state support for every child eligible for a free
or reduced lunch. But the amount hasn't been increased since SAGE was
established a decade ago and would need to be about $2,500 to account
for inflation over that period.

Educators say that except in areas with very high levels of poverty,
the $2,000 payments - which come on top of regular state aid - often
don't cover the additional costs involved in creating small class
sizes for all students in kindergarten through third grade. Teachers'
pay is the largest expense, but sometimes schools have had to spend
money to create additional classrooms, too.

The funding is scheduled to increase to $2,250 per student in the
fall, and Doyle said his upcoming budget proposal will include that
additional money.

"I would much rather have it at $2,500, and I hope we're going to find
some further growth for SAGE," Doyle said.

DPI officials say they lack authority and money to add additional
schools to SAGE. The agency has requested funding to allow about five
schools to join the program in 2008. Doyle will include that funding
in his budget plan.

A money-saving option favored by some educators and legislators would
be to allow districts more flexibility to offer SAGE to fewer grade
levels, or for just portions of the day. But others, including Doyle,
oppose this, saying that watering down SAGE would reduce its
effectiveness.

'The death spiral'

On the western edge of Dane County, Wisconsin Heights School District
officials and residents worry about what's coming next.

The district, which serves Mazomanie and Black Earth, has lost a fifth
of its students since 2001 - by far the biggest loss experienced by
any Dane County district - and more declines are expected.

With six in 10 districts facing dwindling enrollments, many such as
Wisconsin Heights also fear that it could hasten an exodus of families
who use the state's open-enrollment law to obtain greater
opportunities in nearby districts.

In turn, most of the state aid follows those students out of their
home districts, leading to more cutbacks.

"We call it the death spiral," said Stan Johnson, president of the
Wisconsin Education Association Council, the 96,000- member union of
teachers and staff.

Public attention focused in 2005 on the rural northern Wisconsin
Florence School District, which was on the verge of dissolution until
voters approved a referendum to provide $4.75 million over five years.

"They saved themselves in Florence, but the Florence story can be seen
all over the state," Johnson said.


"There is no demonstrable plan to address this thing as the money is
being extracted from the taxpayers at an exorbitant rate," said
referendum opponent Norman Frakes, who served as the district's
administrator from 1993 to 1997.

If approved, the referendum would minimize the need for substantial
cuts for four years, but it would cost taxpayers an additional $177 to
$224 per $100,000 of assessed property value on school property taxes
for each of the next four years.