It's raining on our school children and we can afford an umbrella.

By Jackie Lansdale

President, Caddo Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel

How do we know it’s raining? Five years ago Caddo Parish scored a respectable 29^th out of 66 districts in the statewide school district report card. Two years later we had dropped to 35 ^th. In the latest ranking, Caddo Parish has slid even further to a dismal 44^th in the state. (The score, calculated by the State Department of Education, is based on standardized testing results along with attendance and drop-out data.)

One good place to stop this slide is in kindergarten. As The Times reported, for less than $1.5 million we could reduce the pupil/teacher ratio in kindergarten from as much as 25-to-one to 20-to-one. Research shows that better pupil-teacher ratios in lower grades will impact students for the rest of their lives.

Of course, a surplus is a good thing. We commend the school board for its stewardship. But how big should our rainy day fund be? Most systems do very well with a three to five percent cushion instead of the 10 percent our board is now aiming for. After all, this surplus is public funds that were budgeted to improve our children’s academic performance.

Also, this surplus is not a one-time windfall. Our school board consistently reports a surplus – $25 million in 2004, over $30 million in 2005. Such a large ongoing surplus could actually be a sign of poor budget management -- and lost educational opportunity for children.

Anyone who lives on a family budget knows these basic principles: Don’t spend more than you take in. (The school system doesn’t.) Protect your rainy day fund. (We do.) Spend what’s left in a way that reflects your values. How would you judge the values of a family that invests in the stock market while the children go hungry? If you are running a school system, shouldn’t you put your money in the schools?

From a teacher’s point of view, here are short-term programs that could benefit from one-time rainy day expenditures:

--After-school tutoring

--Textbooks (one teacher told me that he has 19 textbooks for a class with 32 students, and this is not the exception.)

--School supply budgets for teachers who spend hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on school supplies

--Improved copying machines and copy machine contracts so that teachers would not have to run to Kinko's

Long-term investment (when we have decided exactly how large our ongoing surplus will be) should address class sizes. For example: According to official Caddo Parish policy, a middle school class should have no more than 27 students. Yet that policy has been waived in classes that now may have as many as 33 students. Parents, be concerned!

By my calculations, it would take between $800,000 to $1 million to reduce class size by two students, per grade, throughout every school in Caddo Parish. This isn’t a radical idea! Rather this is an attempt to respect the board’s own stated teacher-student policy.