by Joe Sullivan
A lot went into the Education Summit that Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale staged last month, but it's anything but clear what will come out of it. A turnout of more than 1000—mostly educators, parents, businessmen—participated in what may have been the largest public input forum the community has ever seen. Seated at facilitated tables of 10, they spent the better part of the five hour session generating goals for Knox County schools—goals that have now been tabulated and summarized for a working group that's charged with follow through.
Beyond a set of platitudes that were superimposed upon participants, the goals that generated the most support include: attract and retain quality teachers, a strong foundation for educational success [in] pre-K through third grade, individual pathways leading to a strong finish, and assorted curriculum-related strategies.
To help in shaping its recommendations, the working group has also enlisted the involvement of three consultants: Dan Fallon from the Carnegie Corp. in New York, Paul Ruiz from the Education Trust in Washington and Bill Sanders from the University of North Carolina. The consultants spent the better part of two days last week strategizing with the working group that consists of Ragsdale's chief of staff Mike Arms, the city's director of economic development Bill Lyons, the president of the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership Mike Edwards, school board chairman Sam Anderson and school superintendent Charles Lindsey.
"We're looking at the best practices throughout the country and want to determine which ones would be most effectively applied to our school system and then boil it down to four or five key goals that we think everybody can buy into," says Arms.
What they may be and how much they may cost remains to be determined. Indeed, the only thing that's clear is that the group will be issuing a report shortly before Ragsdale presents his county budget for the fiscal year ahead in May.
One might suppose that the real purpose of this entire exercise is to build support for a tax increase to bolster school funding. But if that is his intent, Ragsdale does a good job of masking it. "Before we'd propose any type of tax increase, I need to feel very comfortable that we've eliminated duplication and that we're operating at a decent level of efficiency," he says. And the county mayor makes it clear that the school system has yet to pass this test.
A defining moment will come next month when the school board is due to act on a proposal to consolidate its payroll system with the county's as a stepping stone toward consolidation of other accounting and human resource functions. Ragsdale foresees savings of $2 million resulting from this consolidation, and, at a school board workshop last week, a majority of its members seemed favorably disposed. But Supt. Lindsey was still expressing reservations.
What's striking in all of this is the extent to which Ragsdale has taken the lead away from Lindsey in setting, or at least orchestrating, the school agenda. At the summit, Ragsdale was both the opening and closing speaker while Lindsey was relegated to the cameo role of introducing the luncheon speaker. The template for a "world class school system," which Lindsey has tried without much success to advance over the past two years, gets mentioned as an input to the working group's deliberations—but as little more than an afterthought. And where the superintendent had sought to make the school system more autonomous from the rest of the county government, he's now having consolidation of functions thrust upon him.
To some, this smacks as a Ragsdale power grab following on the heels of his seizing control of the library system a year ago. But even school board members, for the most part, appear to recognize the political necessity of getting the county mayor out front on school funding matters. That's because Lindsey has thoroughly alienated county commissioners, who must approve the funding, with his confrontational style (albeit more subdued of late). There's also a widespread belief among commissioners that Lindsey has done a poor job of managing the school system's $300 million budget from a business standpoint.
Anderson reflected these political realities when he proclaimed at the summit that, "The school board finds it refreshing that we have a county mayor take the lead on education, and whatever goals he sets the Board of Education will follow him 100 percent."
Even before taking new goals into account, a tax increase is needed just to cover school budget increases that seem exigent. The three percent pay raise for teachers that Gov. Phil Bredesen included in his budget would appear, at first blush, to reduce the need for additional local funding. But under the complex workings of the state's formula for allocating education funds, Knox County will have to pick up about two thirds of the $5 million cost of a 3 percent raise for its 4,000 certified teachers and administrators. In addition, they are entitled to more than $3 million in what are known as step raises reflecting their longevity of service. Beyond that, $1.3 million is needed to provide the school system's 3,200 non-certified personnel with the same percentage raise as teachers that they have traditionally received. In sum, that's close to $8 million in additional compensation funding, which consumes all of the revenue growth that county finance director John Werner is projecting from the school system's existing property and sales tax allocations.
The school system's needs for more money don't stop there. More than $5 million is being sought for the textbook purchases, in large part reflecting the fact that they were eliminated from this year's operating budget due to a cut imposed by Ragsdale. Then, there's a $3 million increase in contributions to the state retirement fund as well as escalation of health insurance and utility costs. And over and above the operating cost hikes, more than $2 million in additional debt service funding will be needed to cover three new school construction projects that Ragsdale has blessed: namely, Cedar Bluff Primary, Gibbs Elementary and Powell Middle schools.
All told, that's upward of $10 million for the year ahead. And while the savings from consolidation of functions may be an acid test, it isn't expected to be realized until the following year. Ragsdale can insist that, "there are still a lot of other things we can improve on before we go to tax increase." But they won't get us to fulfillment of his "every school a great school" mantra.
So we hope the Ragsdale we'll be hearing from at budget time is the same one who conditioned its fulfillment at the summit on "government officials who have the willpower and the courage to fund a public education system that's a great system."
February 12, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 7
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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