by Alan Stonecipher

It's showtime in Tallahassee, when legislators satisfy, bewilder, dismay and entertain Floridians as they perform their annual acts of lawmaking.  In their eagerness to produce results, they sometimes incorporate sleight-of-hand in their work.  Like magicians, they try to distract the audience with one hand while pulling a rabbit out of the hat with the other.

So it is with "The 65 Percent Solution", the distraction offered by many Republican lawmakers to draw attention from their major goal:  overturning the class-size reduction amendment added by voters to the Florida Constitution in 2002.

This "solution" to education funding shortfalls promises to magically deliver $1 billion more to Florida classrooms by requiring that at least 65 percent of school operating funds be spent on purposes "directly related to classroom instruction".

Never mind that it provides no new money.  Never mind that it's a politically concocted proposal, imported from out of state, specifically designed to benefit Republican candidates.  Never mind that no credible research suggests a link between an exact percentage of "in the classroom" spending and an increase in student learning.    Never mind that what constitutes "classroom instruction" isn't defined in the legislative proposal.  Never mind that when the definition comes--next year--it's expected to be meaningless, crafted so that no Florida school district will have to change its current spending priorities.

Proponents suggest that Florida's school districts are top-heavy with administrators and spend too much money on supposedly extraneous functions that shortchange classroom instruction.  They also maintain, as they have since 2002, that the state cannot afford to lower class sizes to the levels now mandated in the Constitution.  Thus they've combined the two issues into one proposed constitutional amendment, to be placed on the November election ballot, linking an apparently popular classroom-spending mandate with another effort to convince voters to weaken class-size limits.

The Political Origins and Goals of "The 65 Percent Solution"

The proposal is being pushed nationally by First Class Education, a group formed early in 2005 with offices in Washington, financed in part by Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne.  Its mission, its website says, is "to change the laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to make public schools more effective and efficient by requiring at least 65% of every K-12 education dollar be spent on Ôin the classroom instruction'
as defined by the National Center for Educational Statistics."

Some form of the measure is under consideration in 20 states and the District of Columbia, the organization's website says.  Louisiana, Kansas, Texas and Georgia have passed some version, either by legislation or executive order, each through the efforts of Republican governors and legislative leaders.

The efforts are the brainchild of Tim Mooney, a Republican political consultant in Arizona.  He told the Austin, Texas, American-Statesman newspaper last summer that he took the idea to Byrne because he was an active supporter of school choice initiatives, such as vouchers and charter schools.

A three-page First Class Education memo obtained by the newspaper contains a full page on "The Political Benefits" of the proposal, including its ability to provide Republicans a way to talk about improving education "without the need to call for a tax increase, offsetting budget cuts in other popular programs or gimmick accounting and deficit spending".

Benefit No. 1:  "Splitting of the Education Union.  The 1^st Class Education proposal naturally pits administrators and teachers at odds with one another with monies flowing from the former to the latter with its passage.  Because most state education unions represent both administrators and teachers, the proposal will create tremendous tension within the organization.  Every time the education establishment attacks this proposal, it hurts it standing with the public and the majority of its membership.  Every day and every dollar the education establishment uses to defeat this proposal is a day and a dollar they cannot spend on other political activities."

Benefit No. 2:  "Direct Fix for Public Education.  While voucher and charter school proposals have great merit, large segments of the voting public--especially suburban, affluent women voters--view these ideas as an abandonment of public education.  Women in particular want public education fixed, not replaced.  Once additional fixing and funding of public education can be achieved via the 1^st Class Education proposal, targeted segments of voters may be more greatly predisposed to supporting voucher and charter school proposals, as Republicans address the voting public with greater credibility on public education issues."

Benefit No. 3:  "Establishing the Debate on Taxes and Government Spending.  By highlighting the inefficiencies of education spending, far and away the biggest budgetary item in every state, the 1^st Class Education initiative highlights the likely inefficiencies in all areas of state government. What's the percentage the Department of Motor Vehicles spends on administration verses (sic) direct service to the public?"

Benefit No. 4:  "Allows the Use of Unlimited Non-Personal Money for Political Positioning Advantages.  The aforementioned benefits can be achieved with funding in any amount and from any source.  In the era of campaign finance limitations on candidates, PACs and parties, galvanizing an electorate via the initiative process is a tremendous opportunity."

Benefit No. 5:  "It Wins!  As with initiatives proposing tax limits, term limits and the definition of marriage, ballot success for the 1^st Class Education proposal is exceedingly likely.  Moreover, the proposal can galvanize public political discussion, becoming a natural litmus test for candidates with the electorate.  Its intuitive simplicity establishes either a beneficiary relationship with the voters or a noted disconnect based on the candidates support or opposition to the proposal."

First Class Education touts endorsements from conservative leaders on its website.  One is from Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, friend of Jack Abramoff and author with Tom Delay of the "K Street Project" to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans:

"The First Class Education Initiative allows taxpayer dollars to directly reach the children instead of school bureaucrats," Norquist says on the website.  "Voters can AND will send a powerful message to union leadership. Opposition to this measure to increase funding for classroom instruction and more qualified educators will be detrimental to their general membership."

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union:  "Far too much of the taxpayers' hard-earned money is wasted in America's public schools on bloated bureaucracies, duplicative administrative overhead, and other non-instructional spending. It's time more of the taxpayers money actually reached classrooms, where children are taught and where education actually takes place. Education First is advancing a simple idea that could revolutionize education in America: Spend money in the classroom!"

Is 65 Percent the Magic Number?  What the Research Says

The First Class Education memo itself acknowledges that "Éevidence is decidedly mixed as to whether the amount of money spent per child is a determinant factor in test scoresÉ"  Even that lukewarm claim is demolished in a study by SchoolMatters, a service of Standard & Poor's. 

In The Issues and Implications of the "65 Percent Solution" in Fall 2005, S&P concludes:

                        Standard & Poor's analysis of data in nine states that are

currently considering instituting a 65 Percent Solution shows

no significant positive correlation between the percentage of funds

that districts spend on instruction and the percentage of students who

score proficient or higher on state reading and math tests.  Although

there are a number of districts that spend more than 65% on

instruction and achieve above-average proficiency levels, there

are many districts that exceed the 65% goal and achieve below-

average proficiency rates.  Interestingly, some of the high-

performing districts spend less than 65%, and some of the lowest-   

performing districts spend more than 65%.  Student performance

does not noticeably or consistently increase at 65%, or any other

percentage spent on instruction.

Florida is among the nine states S&P studied (along with Minnesota, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona and Colorado).  Thus not only does S&P find no correlation between test scores and 65 percent or any other level of spending nationally, it specifically finds no evidence linking achievement with the percentage allocated by districts to instruction in Florida.

A separate analysis by the Florida Forum for Progressive Policy finds no connection between "classroom spending" percentages and student performance results in Florida's 67 school districts.  They spent between 48.4 percent and 62.7 percent "in the classroom", according to calculations using S&P's database and method of deriving classroom spending percentages (dividing instructional expenditures per student by operating expenditures per student).

Each of Florida's school districts spent below the magic 65 percent standard, therefore.  More importantly, the classroom-spending level apparently has little to do with how districts are graded by the Florida Department of Education.  School districts receiving an "A" grade spent from 55.0 percent to 62.7 percent; "B" districts from 54.4 percent to 61.0 percent; and "C" districts from 48.4 percent to 61.6 percent.  The three "D" districts each spent between 50 and 55 percent "in the classroom".

In addition, an S&P report on "Outperforming School Districts in Florida" found six counties that outperformed demographically similar school districts in reading and math proficiency for two consecutive years.  Among the six:  the tiny district of Lafayette County, which spent 48.5 percent of instructional funds "in the classroom" and which received a "C" grade by the Florida Department of Education.

The five other districts that "outperformed" on math and reading spent from 55.6 percent to 58.3 percent "in the classroom".  None of the 12 Florida districts with classroom spending above 60 percent earned the S&P "outperforming" label.

Conclusion:  While "spending more on instruction is generally thought to help raise test scoresÉthe data reveal no significant relationship between instruction spending at 65% or any other level and student performance", Standard & Poor's said.

Nevertheless, Governor Bush and others apparently believe the proposal could enhance learning.  "Supporters, including the governor, say the idea may boost student test scores," the Florida Times-Union reported.  "'I thought we were spending more than that already in classrooms,' Bush said last week.  ÔThat's where the money should go.  Sixty-five percent seems a little low.'"

What the 65 Percent Plan Leaves Out:  Vital Services and New Money

While the national First Class Education proposal requires calculating classroom spending by using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Standard & Poor's points out that there is no NCES spending category called "classroom instruction".  The closest, S&P says, is "instruction expenditures", funds used for "activities that occur directly between students and teachers", including teacher salaries and benefits, supplies and materials.

Left out of that definition are a host of necessary functions of schools and school districts:  teacher training, instruction and curriculum development, library and media services, counselors, nurses, social workers, school and district administration, operations and maintenance, food services and transportation. 

What's not disputed by either advocates or opponents of the 65 percent "solution" is that no new money would be added to K-12 education by the proposal--this in a state that ranks 46^th out of 50 in expenditures per student.    If the requirement were adopted and enforced stringently, $1 billion--the difference between the current 59 percent of operational funds going "into the classroom" in Florida and the 65 percent requirement--would be transferred "to the classroom" from administration, food services, transportation and other categories excluded in the definition of classroom spending. 

The Magic Trick:  Pulling Class-Size Changes Out of the Hat

Although ill-advised on its own merits, the 65 percent proposal contained in HB 447 and SB 1150 deserves scrutiny because its major purpose is to woo voters into backing off the class-size mandate.

The problem for those who oppose class-size restrictions is that Floridians continue to support them.  Two-thirds of voters in a statewide survey by Quinnipiac (Conn.) University Polling Institute in February "said they oppose a proposal to allow larger class sizes in public schools in the wake of lawmaker efforts to get around a 2002 constitutional amendment requiring smaller class sizes," according to the Associated Press.  "Unlike many education issues, there is little difference among Republicans and Democrats on the issue," the polling director said.

At the same time, however, about 70 percent "liked the idea of schools spending at least 65 percent of their budgets on direct classroom expenses, as opposed to administration, food services, transportation and other expenses."

Thus the linkage between the two issues, one popular and one resisted by voters.

In last year's legislative session, a small group of Republicans joined with Democrats to reject a Bush proposal that would have raised starting teacher salaries in exchange for changes in the class-size requirements.  This year's proposal, however, sweetened by the 65 percent language, is apparently only a couple of votes short of the three-fifths vote needed in the Senate to be placed on November's ballot.  Passage in the House of Representatives seems assured.

To gain support for the proposal, its sponsors have put off until next year defining what would be included in the Florida version of the 65 percent requirement.  The measure only says the constitutional amendment would "require at least 65 percent of total funds, as defined by law, received by school districts for operational expenditures to be expended for purposes directly related to classroom instruction, as defined by law."  If voters approve, in other words, lawmakers can make the 65 percent definition mean whatever they'd like--after the fact.

That has not gone unnoticed by the Florida School Boards Association, which opposes the class-size restriction as an onerous fiscal burden taking money from other, more important K-12 needs.  The FSBA, in a memo on its website, notes that "there has been some discussion among legislators to indicate" that the ultimate definition might include spending categories that would assure that "nearly all of Florida's school districts would meet the 65% requirement."

Thus, "The FSBA membership has voted not to oppose this initiative at this time, with the assurance from key legislators that the Legislature will adopt acceptable definitions of these key terms that will recognize and incorporate legislative policies relating to appropriate and necessary class room expenditures in Florida."

As the FSBA, Bush and other opponents believe, a credible argument can be made for voters to consider modifying the class-size language they adopted in 2002.  Ideally, if opponents wish to pursue such modifications, they would place a straightforward proposal on the ballot, one unencumbered by the 65 percent illusion, for the voters' decision.  They may win on the merits of their class-size arguments.  Or, as Republican Senator Jim King said in reaction to the Qunnipiac poll, "(Voters) might just say:  ÔWe're tired of you asking us if we really meant what we said'".