The Best Schools 2008

It's Time to Get Serious About Saving Our Schools—Now
A prescription for beating the budget squeeze.

By Jason Schwartz

At the end of every school year, Arlington administrators ask themselves the same question: How much money will we need so we don't have to fire anyone?

"We run what's called the ‘everybody comes back' figure," says Nate Levenson, who recently stepped down as the town's superintendent.

Arlington came up $650,000 short in 2005, and $750,000 short in 2006. Last year it was $1.25 million behind. Despite raising fees and even the price of lunch, so far the system has lost 19 teachers, nine administrators, and a custodian.

It's not just Arlington. Every district's "everybody comes back" figure is drifting further from reach. The favored form of salvation has been Proposition 2½ override referendums, which allow voters to raise their taxes to help out beleaguered schools. But appealing to residents to dig deeper each year is no long-term solution—and anyway, last year only about half of the overrides that went to vote passed.

This much is true: It's never been trickier to ensure a top-shelf education for our kids. Skyrocketing energy prices have boosted the cost of powering buildings and transporting students, while spiraling healthcare expenses have driven insurance costs for staff through the gym roof (on top of that, older teachers are living longer and collecting more in pensions and medical benefits). As in Arlington, schools have hiked fees for clubs and sports to try to keep up, but jobs and electives—especially in the arts and music—still face the chopping block. The line between saving money and shortchanging students has gotten awfully blurred.

To his credit, Governor Deval Patrick has identified the problem and attacked it with big ideas. Unfortunately, putting into practice the reform plan he introduced this summer will be a tall order. Two of the governor's boldest initiatives—creating a statewide teacher contract and combining districts to create a greater economy of scale—could save wheelbarrows of cash, but unions and municipalities are notorious for protecting their turf. Then there's the matter of actually paying for all the governor's other proposals, which include making community colleges tuition-free and providing better pay for teachers in harder-to-staff subjects, like math. "We're building a house," Patrick has said. "You design it first and then cost it out."

Oh, boy. That approach is directly at odds with the crusade of state Treasurer Tim Cahill, who's railed against towns designing expensive new schools without practical plans for paying for them (see Newton North). Cahill takes Patrick's house analogy and turns it on its head: Figure out what you can reasonably spend, he advises, then build what makes sense. Straightforward though it may be, that's just the sort of pragmatism that should dictate classroom spending as well.

In some places, it already does. Across the state, the districts doing the best job in these lean times are the ones behaving less like schools and more like businesses.

For example, Arlington loaded up on consultants. One new hire, a cost-cutting analyst, saved the town more than a quarter-million dollars last year. Now the district has tasked a part-timer to scour sources like eBay for cheap textbooks, a move that's saving as much as 90 percent on some volumes. In Plymouth, implementing a consultant's rudimentary energy-savings plan—which amounted to little more than tips on when to turn off lights and computers and how high to set the thermostats—is saving the town about $1 million a year. "It sounds so simple, but goddamn it, it works," says the recently retired Bob Gurek, who oversaw the district's finances.

Some administrators are also cribbing tactics from successful nonprofits and foundations by reaching out to the community's businesses and residents, and working strategically to spread the message. The Brookline Education Foundation, a fundraising group that supports that town's schools, last year collected more than $400,000 through events and solicitations. In plenty of other districts, administrators are making new efforts to communicate with residents—the same folks whose yes votes are needed on those override ballots. "We hold a number of public meetings, we take people on school tours, and we don't use a lot of educational jargon," says Westwood Assistant Superintendent Ed Kazanjian, who was on the winning side of an override vote last year.

Management consultants, fundraising, PR campaigns—the public school game is changing. Superintendents now have to be equally adept as educators and CEOs. They must understand complex fiscal matters as completely as they do what makes a child learn. Patrick should continue to pursue big-picture reform, but with our schools needing help now, it'll be up to superintendents and administrators to get creative, run their budgets efficiently, and deliver practical solutions. Their "everybody comes back" numbers depend on it.