The 65% 'solution' is no solution at all

While we wait for the next version of TABOR, TPA, TIP-TOP, TIC-TAC-TOE or whatever it will be called -- which should surface any time now -- let's take a moment to look at the "Tax Relief Today" proposal from State Sens. Sheila Harsdorf and Ron Brown.

There's one good thing about the thinking of those two Repubs from western Wisconsin. They don't think we need a constitutional amendment to hold down government spending. They're right, of course. It doesn't take a genius to reach that conclusion. But few in the GOP caucus have been willing to say it out loud.

So, good for Harsdorf and Brown for saying no to the terrible idea of amending the constitution. Their opposition may have killed it.

But then there's the little matter of the legislation they proposed, their "Tax Relief Today" proposal, which hasn't gotten much attention.

It's a several-part plan, and presumably they would settle for some of the pieces rather than the whole thing. Most of them sound familiar -- a local property tax freeze, state spending cap, messing with health benefits, and shifting funding of technical colleges to the state.

Then there's the Big Idea, which they describe thusly:

Enacting "First Class Education" by requiring that at least 65% of education funding be spent on classroom instruction by 2008. The 65% benchmark would redirect over $250 million more into kids' classrooms per year.

Gee, where'd they get an idea like that? Maybe they are geniuses.

And maybe not. The so-called "65% Solution" is one that the right wing is pushing in state legislatures around the country. The Center for American Progress says:

A handful of conservatives have embraced a plan that undermines America's schools and are selling the plan as a silver bullet to the problems faced by those schools. The plan, dubbed the 65 Percent Solution, is the brainchild of Utah businessman Patrick M. Byrne, president and chairman of Overstock.com, Inc. It requires school districts to reallocate existing funds so that at least 65 percent of their educational budget is spent on classroom instruction...

... Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute points out, "If a 'corporate reformer' acquired Wal-Mart and decreed that 65 percent of all revenues be spent on floor staff and in-store improvements, Wall Street would greet him with derision. There is nothing innately wrong with such moves -- but well-managed firms know that one-size-fits-all management went out with lava lamps and leisure suits."

... With a system of standards-based education and accountability, local leaders should have the flexibility to allocate funds wherever needed to ensure gains in all students' academic performance. The 65 Percent Solution simplistically focuses on financial inputs rather than learning outcomes by limiting local control over how education dollars are spent...

In addition to doing nothing to improve academic achievement, the 65 Percent Solution's narrow definition of classroom instruction actually hurts students and schools. Classroom instruction as defined in the plan includes teacher salaries, general instruction supplies, instructional aides and activities such as field trips, athletics, music and arts. It does not include, however, building maintenance, school lunches, transportation, heat, nurses, counselors, libraries and librarians, computer labs, teacher professional development, speech therapists, or school security. Under the 65 Percent Solution, these important resources have to compete for 35 percent of already scarce funds...

Teacher professional development, library and school nursing programs are not the only ones that suffer under the 65 Percent Solution. Resources for school safety, transportation, building maintenance, and school lunches are also among the many programs that would have to be eliminated or significantly reduced because the 35 percent of school budgets allotted to "outside the classroom expenses" would not be sufficient to adequately fund all of them.

It is not a simple solution to problems of school financing in Wisconsin. In fact, it's not a solution at all. One group calls it the 65% Distraction, and the National PTA calls it "a shell game where no child wins."

It hardly seems like something that ought to be passed in the final days of a legislative session when it just popped up in Wisconsin last week.