Local opinion: Proposition 320 could force cuts to school support services

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, clear — and wrong. Proposition 320 is a textbook case. This poorly drafted measure was referred to the ballot by the Arizona Legislature. While it seems to promise that district schools will spend more on teaching and learning, it breaks that promise and punishes teachers and students.

Our public schools do have a real problem: Arizona ranks near the bottom nationally in per-pupil funding. Prop 320 doesn't fix that problem. It mandates a wildly unrealistic and narrowly defined spending requirement that ends up punishing districts for providing students with classroom support.

Prop 320 requires school districts across the state, including all districts in Pima County, to spend at least 60% of their operating budgets on "direct instructional expenses." Voters won't find that term defined anywhere in the statute. Instead, with no drafting guidance, the measure hands that task to an administrative officer, the Auditor General. Using technical terminology, this unelected bureaucrat has narrowly defined what counts as "direct" instruction, excluding most classroom spending support.

Under this bureaucratically defined mandate, every major district in Arizona falls short, not because it is mismanaged, but because the definition excludes the personnel who help students learn. Because the 60% threshold is a ratio, not a dollar target, districts can't simply add instructional spending — they must shift funds by cutting elsewhere.

Major budget cuts will be necessary. Under the definition, student support services don't count, meaning cuts must hit some combination of counselors, audiologists, speech pathologists, nurses, social workers and attendance services. Instruction support doesn't count either, meaning cuts target librarians, teacher training, curriculum development, special education directors and technology services.

This mandate reached the ballot without one new dollar provided to Arizona classrooms. It forces underfunded districts to choose between "direct" instruction and classroom support services that students depend on to succeed.

The cuts will hurt teachers. When classroom support services get defined out of "instruction" to chase the mandate, it's the classroom teacher who gets squeezed. She becomes the one calming a child in crisis because no counselor is available. He becomes the one to figure out, on his own, how to teach a new state standard nobody trained him on, because curriculum development staff were cut to make the numbers work.

The consequences don't stop there. Districts that fall short are penalized by losing an escalating share of their Classroom Site Fund every year. This is money that pays for smaller class sizes, tutoring, and teacher support. The penalty is rigid to the point of injustice: a district that misses the 60% mark by a few thousand is punished the same as a district that misses it by ten million.

School resource officers, safety training, and campus security upgrades don't count as "direct instruction" either. So, the same definition that threatens counselors and librarians puts campus safety spending at risk.

A district already stretched thin doesn't get help meeting this new standard — it gets pushed further into financial crisis. As one example, Tucson Unified School District estimates it would have to cut $43 million from the rest of its budget to make it work. To understand this, the district could cut the entire administrative budget and still not come close to meeting the requirement. Or it could cut the entire transportation budget, and the entire meal service budget, and still not come close. These are massive school budgeting changes with dire implications for schools, teachers and students.

Arizona wouldn't be the first state to learn this the hard way. In 2005, Texas adopted a nearly identical mandate, requiring districts to hit a fixed instructional-spending percentage or risk their financial rating. It didn't work. A study failed to definitively link the spending ratio and student achievement, and the definition excluded the same service providers Arizona's measure excludes today. By 2009, Texas reversed course. With bipartisan support, the Texas Legislature barred the state from using such a requirement to judge districts' financial management. Arizona is poised to repeat a mistake Texas abandoned.

Arizona's schools don't need a misguided, unfunded mandate. They need real investment. I urge voters to reject Proposition 320. Please join me in voting NO on Proposition 320.