The Public Sector
Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 6:27 pm
I’m growing very tired of the steady stream letters to the editor, callers to talk shows, and newspaper articles whining about declining funding in our state schools and colleges. I live in Pennsylvania, but I think the same point can be made elsewhere.
In my 40-year career, I have worked for many private-sector employers who have endured major budget cutbacks with minimal service reductions. When confronted with a cutback, people were told they had to work harder and more efficiently. Non-exempt people were required to work some additional time during the crunch period. Raises were suspended and occasionally there were broad-based wage cutbacks. Some employers substituted bonuses for wage increases, in order to keep the base rates constant. Unneeded people (including myself, more than once), departments and functions were eliminated. And believe it or not, life went on. There was some pain, but life went on, and the customers usually never knew the difference.
But in the public sector, and especially when it comes to education budgets, things don't seem to work that way.
Education spending over the past 40 years has absolutely exploded (with no measurable improvement in results, but that's the subject of a separate thread). Not only have the actual educators, by and large, had their compensation increased dramatically, but administration has exploded, specialized counselors and teachers have proliferated, and new "programs" abound.
And yet, when it is suggested that the budget is going to have to be constrained by a couple percent for a year or two, we are told that it will be catastrophic. Every single one of the things that contributed to the dramatic increase in costs is now cast in concrete and can never be re-evalauted. NOTHING can be scaled back, NO ONE can be eliminated without bringing the whole institution crashing to the ground. The very suggestion that the schools should be able to get by on the same budget they had two years ago is simply a non-starter.
Our colleges are claiming that a few percentage points reduction in their state subsidies will be a crushing blow, forcing countless working-class students out of school. But there are no reports of Majors or courses being eliminated, class sizes increased, departments consolidated, or money-consuming extra-curricular programs (Field Hockey Team) being dropped. (An article in the Tribune Review last week lauded a guy who was said to have a PhD in "Exercise Science" from one of our state colleges).
Who is looking at these colleges to see if things simply MUST BE the same tomorrow as they are today?
A typical Pennsylvania public school district provides its students with about 1,000 hours of instruction per year at an average per-student cost of about $12,000. Our state-related colleges provide half as much instruction per academic year (roughly 500 hours for a full-time undergrad) at twice the cost (based on out-of-state tuition). What does that imply?
And correct me if I'm wrong, but instruction in a university is not the same as instruction in high school. In high school, the instructor assumes the majority of the responsibility for educating the students, while in college that should be reversed.
I think this is a time when it might be nice to try to bring in a few executives from the private sector to kick ass. I wonder if Chris Christie is on this?
In my 40-year career, I have worked for many private-sector employers who have endured major budget cutbacks with minimal service reductions. When confronted with a cutback, people were told they had to work harder and more efficiently. Non-exempt people were required to work some additional time during the crunch period. Raises were suspended and occasionally there were broad-based wage cutbacks. Some employers substituted bonuses for wage increases, in order to keep the base rates constant. Unneeded people (including myself, more than once), departments and functions were eliminated. And believe it or not, life went on. There was some pain, but life went on, and the customers usually never knew the difference.
But in the public sector, and especially when it comes to education budgets, things don't seem to work that way.
Education spending over the past 40 years has absolutely exploded (with no measurable improvement in results, but that's the subject of a separate thread). Not only have the actual educators, by and large, had their compensation increased dramatically, but administration has exploded, specialized counselors and teachers have proliferated, and new "programs" abound.
And yet, when it is suggested that the budget is going to have to be constrained by a couple percent for a year or two, we are told that it will be catastrophic. Every single one of the things that contributed to the dramatic increase in costs is now cast in concrete and can never be re-evalauted. NOTHING can be scaled back, NO ONE can be eliminated without bringing the whole institution crashing to the ground. The very suggestion that the schools should be able to get by on the same budget they had two years ago is simply a non-starter.
Our colleges are claiming that a few percentage points reduction in their state subsidies will be a crushing blow, forcing countless working-class students out of school. But there are no reports of Majors or courses being eliminated, class sizes increased, departments consolidated, or money-consuming extra-curricular programs (Field Hockey Team) being dropped. (An article in the Tribune Review last week lauded a guy who was said to have a PhD in "Exercise Science" from one of our state colleges).
Who is looking at these colleges to see if things simply MUST BE the same tomorrow as they are today?
A typical Pennsylvania public school district provides its students with about 1,000 hours of instruction per year at an average per-student cost of about $12,000. Our state-related colleges provide half as much instruction per academic year (roughly 500 hours for a full-time undergrad) at twice the cost (based on out-of-state tuition). What does that imply?
And correct me if I'm wrong, but instruction in a university is not the same as instruction in high school. In high school, the instructor assumes the majority of the responsibility for educating the students, while in college that should be reversed.
I think this is a time when it might be nice to try to bring in a few executives from the private sector to kick ass. I wonder if Chris Christie is on this?
