Oregon School District

123 East Grove Street, Oregon, WI 53575 608-835-4000 www.oregonsd.org

March 11, 2013

We oppose Governor Walkers budget. We reject the message it sends about public education and, in addition, it will cause significant problems for the Oregon School District. For the reasons set forth below, the Oregon Board of Education calls upon the Legislature to enact a biennial budget which provides fair funding for Wisconsins public schools. Governor Walkers education platform demands "accountability" of public schools through standardized testing, school grading systems, and educator and administrator effectiveness plans and ratings. All of this is done under the justification of improving public education. This mandate will require the Oregon School District to expend significant time to learn and will require us to spend precious operational budget dollars to implement. These additional costs come at a time when we are facing increased challenges to funding existing programs. In the wake of this unfunded mandate, the Governors biennial budget proposes to cut funding for the Oregon School District through the elimination of the $50 per student increase in categorical aid the District received in 2012-2013. In addition, the Governor proposes to restrict our 2013-2014 revenues to 2012-2013 levels. Thus, we approach our 2013-2014 operating budget process facing less state funding, increasing costs, and additional unfunded mandates, while at the same time required by the Governors proposed budget to limit spending to last years levels. This comes on the heels of the last state budget which decreased State funding by 5.5% and reduced employees' compensation by 5.8%. These are the budget challenges the Oregon School District currently faces: We provide in our 2012-2013 budget a modest wage increase of 2.75% for our employees. This comports with the Act 10 requirement that base wages not exceed the certified CPI. We authorized this spending to help ameliorate the impact on our employees of Act 10, but it creates a budget deficit of $150,000 in the 2013-2014 budget. Under Act 10s CPI mandate, the 2013-2014 wage CPI will be at least 2.5%. Thus, if we want to keep our employees only even with cost of living, our employee compensation costs will increase $600,000. We are facing a potential increase in health insurance costs for the 2013-2014 1

budget of $600,000.00. Seven years ago, we negotiated health insurance savings and provided those savings to our employees to make them competitive in the market place. We have limited flexibility to limit these premium increases short of passing greater premium burdens on to our employees. Thus, we are facing, at a minimum, a $750,000 deficit for the 2013-2014 budget without factoring in potential wage increases. This will mean serious consideration of program and staffing cuts.

It is simply unconscionable for the Governor to pontificate a program of increased accountability for public schools on the one hand and to take away the funding necessary to accomplish our mission on the other. What is even more insulting in the Governors budget is the diversion of these much needed educational funds to alternative models such as private voucher and charter schools which do not have the same state mandates and accountability mechanisms. Over the last decade, the Oregon School District has been following a strategic plan to provide a free public education to all of our students that prepares them for the challenges of the 21st Century under an accountability system that measures success on multiple measures. In particular, our District embraces the challenges faced by the changing world of education, including increased competition from alternative education models (e.g., voucher and charter schools). However, by increasing funding to those alternative models while decreasing funding for public schools and by not requiring of those alternative models the same mandates and accountability processes we face, the Governor has sent a clear message that he does not value the public schools that have made this State a leader in education and the efforts we have made in the Oregon School District to do the very thing he espouses. The State of Wisconsin has historically been the envy of the nation with its public education program. This is because the State of Wisconsin understood the direct correlation between a strong public education system and a strong economy. This budget proposal harms public schools in ways that may be irreversible. The State is once again in a budgeted surplus. It is time to restore some of the funding that was taken away from the public school system. Taken as a whole, the Governor's educational platform can only be viewed as an all-out attack on public education in the State of Wisconsin. As stewards of public education, we ask that you, as the legislative arm of this State, protect our ability to educate the students in our District and across the state. We are heartened to hear that efforts are underway which would reject the Governors funding program for public schools, provide public schools with additional funding to help minimize our funding deficits and to stop the diversion of these much needed funds to alternative education models. Those efforts should be realized in a biennial budget that affirms public education and sends a strong message to our teachers, staff and administrators that their efforts are recognized and that they play a vital role in the economy and well-being of this State. We also call upon the Legislature to reject Governor Walkers proposal allocate part of the education funding in the second year of the biennium based upon the current school report cards. We have serious reservations about the report cards, including: 2

They are currently based in large part on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam. We do not believe the WKCE is a meaningful tool to measure student achievement and have fashioned an accountability system that uses other forms of standardized tests (MAPS and Plan, Explore, and ACT). The State has reached the same conclusion about the efficacy of the WKCE since it plans on replacing that test with another standardized test. Nonetheless, the State uses WKCE test data as the primary data toll in the report card formula. The report cards do not measure whether schools are successful in all areas of academic endeavor, including the arts, vocational education, agricultural programs and co-curricular activities. The report cards do not purport to measure skills necessary for success in a society and the 21st century workplace, including critical thinking, adaptability, ability to use technology, the ability to persuade, etc. By narrowly limiting areas of assessment, the report cards fail to give a complete picture of whether a school is adequately preparing a student for life after high school. The reports cards are in their first year of existence and have serious flaws that need to be reviewed and worked out. For example, the Oregon Senior High School this year received a C rating meeting expectations. If five more students had participated in the WKCE testing in 2011, the Oregon High School would have received a B rating exceeding expectations. We are hard pressed to understand the labeling of our High School in this fashion. It certainly has nothing to do with whether we are preparing our students for the future. Our internal assessments indicate that we are successful in this regard.

Notwithstanding these flaws, Governor Walkers budget proposes to disperse funds based on report card rankings. We are not certain how this will occur. Since only limited academic areas are measured as to whether a building is successful, how will funding based on the report cards be allocated? Will an amazing orchestra teacher who sends students on an annual basis to prestigious music programs be penalized because the school in which she teaches has low reading scores or because five students failed to take the WKCE exam? We believe that it is inappropriate to allocate budget funds based upon a newly instituted school report card system whose underpinnings are questionable at best and whose implementation is in its infancy. We request that the Legislature take any funds available in the budget and allocate them under the current budget formula rather than allocating them under a system which has no proven basis for improving student achievement. Finally, the Governor and Legislature continue to ignore the fundamental problem facing school district economics the school funding formula. It is universally recognized that the formula is broken and that schools across the state are suffering because of its inherent flaws, in particular districts with decreasing enrollment. When instituted, the formula contained three prongs state funding at a 67%, a limitation on compensation (QEO) and a limitation on levy increases. The QEO was repealed in 2008 and the state is currently funding schools at 61% rate. We do not see how the formula is relevant anymore given that its essential components are no longer present. 3

Rather than play at the margins each biennium with school funding, the Governor and Legislature should finally have the courage to tackle the primary issue related to school funding and create a funding system that makes sense in the current economic and demographic climate. Until this is done, we will continued to see the decline in the ability of Wisconsins public schools to deliver services necessary for our children and the States economy. Sincerely, Courtney Odorico, President Oregon School Board