Sohn: Less is more, unless it's money and school leaders

Staff photo by Doug Strickland / A budget binder lies on the table during a Hamilton County Board of Education special session in April.
Staff photo by Doug Strickland / A budget binder lies on the table during a Hamilton County Board of Education special session in April.
photo Education schools pencils

For six months, 11 business and community leaders have analyzed Hamilton County's school district budget and operations, seeking ways to spend education money more efficiently and boost student learning.

The group's first recommendation for our school system was tough love to save money: Trim to have fewer schools and fewer teachers.

After reading the business group's findings and recommendations, it's easy to see that less is more. Unless we're talking about planning, revenue and leadership.

Hamilton County has 79 schools, 43,797 students, 3,058 teachers, 184 school administrators and about $420 million dollars with which to fix the falling scores that follow 60 percent of each year's third-graders who get to their summer break without learning to read well enough to keep up in future years.

We usually band-aid schools with more teachers and more money - usually from foundations and rarely from tax increases. Clearly that hasn't worked here.

In our schools we have an average of 14 students per teacher, compared to a 16-to-1 ratio statewide and even higher nationwide. We also have fewer students per school than other systems statewide and nationwide, and we have a $200 million backlog in deferred facilities maintenance - including five schools that each need more than $10 million in repairs.

But if we close those schools, rezone and think strategically - especially with the help of the county planning commission and developers - about what schools should be redesigned, expanded or built new, we can invest much of what would have been new capital money into classroom priorities.

Yet the greatest savings here would be in manpower. Fewer schools means fewer teachers - our single largest educational expenditure.

"School consolidation and rightsizing could reduce maintenance costs and reduce the number of teachers in the system, producing annual savings of $15 million to $20 million," the report states.

Reductions in the number of teachers could be achieved through attrition. Our teachers, the lowest paid among Tennessee and Georgia's major cities, could get raises. And that would help Hamilton County attract better teachers - something sorely needed, as Hamilton County now has almost twice the number of "least effective" classroom teachers - 29 percent - as the state's other major school districts and the state average.

Where less is not more in Hamilton County is in school administration. This is where we get to the nitty-gritty planning and money part.

We've heard for years - as county commissioners have batted back calls for school budget increases (and therefore, tax increases) - that if school leaders needed more money they should just trim the fat in the central office. We have done that, and we now tout the highest ratio of teachers to administrators among the states four major school districts.

What we don't have is what business leaders called a "C" suite. That would be a chief operating officer, a chief talent officer and a chief information officer - the strategic thinkers who work on the business, not just in it. Business minds, not fine educators who've been promoted to the central office where their skill sets may not be the right fit.

"These individuals should bring significant experience in these areas, even if they have limited direct education experience," states the report. "HCDE may sometimes be inefficient because it has too few staff at Central Office, not too many."

Certainly, we have some examples: Limited finance staff reduces the system's ability to effectively plan things like rebidding bus firm contracts after a tragic accident, or spending iZone money in a timely way to help students.

County Mayor Jim Coppinger last fall asked the business group, including David Eichenthal and Nick Decosimo, to conduct an independent and neutral review of the school district's financial situation.

The group agrees that the school district is underfunded, but Coppinger understands that taxpayers aren't convinced the district is operating efficiently and effectively.

"We have to be able to show to the public what more money would accomplish, and where you're going to see the improvements," Coppinger told Times Free Press reporter Kendi Rainwater.

Decosimo said the review's goal was to see where the district can improve and start thinking more strategically.

"We'd really love to see some of the suggestions we have made be put into place and some long-term strategy implemented in our schools," he said. "We'd also like to see some good business practices implemented."

But Decosimo says the district can't be more strategic without more revenue. One option beyond savings and/or a straight property tax increase might be a new tax levy dedicated to school infrastructure, technology and innovation. Another might be a wheel tax. The working group also suggests the hiring of two county-paid "performance auditors."

"There has to be an investment for future savings," he said.

Coppinger will present his budget for the upcoming fiscal year to the county commission this week. And the Board of Education is expected to pick a new superintendent in mid-June. Interim Superintendent Kirk Kelly - the former administrator in charge of our system's testing and accountability - is one of five candidates on the short list.

The report doesn't say this, but it must be said: We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

More money and these strategic policy changes will help our schools. Leaving the same leadership in place may not.

Where money and leadership are concerned, less is still less.

Upcoming Events