65 percent of not enough still not enough

Published 3:00 pm Saturday, February 4, 2006

Imagine for a moment that back in 1845, codifier of baseball Alexander Cartwright had decided to relegate batters to the bench after two strikes – or perhaps four.

The phrase “three strikes, you’re out” would never have entered the American lexicon, the slogan would never have been picked up by tough-on-crime legislators, and it would today be one strike easier – or harder – to keep certain repeat criminal offenders behind bars.

We mention this not to comment on the merits of “three strikes” legislation, but rather to consider the cachet that some causes manage to assume with little more than a catchy slogan to their credit. (The “$30 car tab” would be another example, a wholly arbitrary figure bearing no relation to the actual cost of motor vehicle administration, but which nonetheless became a golden calf for Washington’s anti-tax crowd.)

Latest to come down the pike is the alliterative “65 percent solution,” part of a national education reform movement and currently the subject of an initiative effort in our fair state. Brainchild of the online huckster behind Overstock.com, the initiative would require local school districts to devote 65 percent of their annual budget to “the classroom”; the figure was derived from national data that suggest a correlation between such classroom spending and higher achievement on standardized testing statewide.

Sounds great; after all, who wouldn’t want to see more education dollars spent in the classroom? Except that there’s no data to back that correlation at the local level; no doubt you can find plenty of individual districts whose students do perfectly well on tests even though they happen to show classroom spending below that arbitrary 65 percent threshold.

And forcing districts to shift money around in their budgets does nothing to address actual school funding, which in Washington is chronically low; it just means some programs are going to be better funded at the expense of others. Note that the current federal definition of “in the classroom” does not include librarians, speech therapists or school nurses, for example. Who wants to see those essential services cut to satisfy some uninformed whim of the state’s voters? This sort of initiative has the same feel-good, bumper-sticker appeal of “three strikes” or $30 tabs, without addressing real implications or funding needs.

For the record, the Bainbridge Island School District currently spends nearly 67 percent of its budget “in the classroom.” And that is the result of ongoing analysis and decision-making by our school officials and our elected school board, who we trust to give our kids the best educational experience they can with scarce resources. Islanders don’t need the state telling us how to spend money in Bainbridge schools.

Keep school budget control local; when the initiative clipboard comes your way, don’t put the bat in the sponsors’ hands. The “65 percent solution” doesn’t even deserve – dare we say – one strike.