This paper was distributed to tax payers in the town of Weston, MA in March 2006 in anticipation of a tax override vote in May of that year.  Its purpose was to remind citizens of the value of public education and the importance of their financial and political support.

I. The Community Benefits of Public Education
The quality of a community is a direct outcome of its citizens’ willingness to provide the resources for services through the collection of taxes and contributions of time and money. Pooling resources for the benefit of the community is both the most equitable and efficient way of managing resources. Volunteering time to serve the public in community organizations and elected offices also reduces the need for paid personnel and ensures community representation.

We pay for police protection and fire and emergency response even if we may never call upon these services ourselves. We are willing to do so because this creates a safe, clean, and productive community. We ask local government to keep our roads clear of obstruction and our parks and cemeteries tidy. Funding these services through taxes not only spreads the financial burden, it also serves the public by maintaining a community-wide standard.

Public education also serves the larger community. Quality education is directly linked to economic productivity. Without publicly funded education, society risks devolving into an aristocracy, where the rich receive the best education and the best access to economic opportunity, while the poor become less productive and an increasing burden to society. Even people without children prefer to live in communities with strong schools because they tend to have robust economies, low crime, healthy and engaged citizens. Studies show that real estate demand is directly correlated with the quality of a community’s public schools. Weston’s reputation for fine schools encouraged a 27% growth in enrollment during the last decade that was accompanied by a dramatic 149% growth in real estate value. In addition to this direct economic benefit to home owners and the community, the educated individual is more likely to become a participant in civic life and a productive contributor to the economy where ever he or she goes.

II. The Monetary Cost of Education
Law makers and politicians understand the value of an educated public and the responsibility of public schools to provide this education. Concerns about academic achievement and economic competitiveness have led state and federal governments to implement educational mandates for what children should learn in public schools. In Massachusetts, beginning with the Class of 2003, students must pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Achievement Standards test in the tenth grade in order to receive a high school diploma. The President is now advocating math and science education as well as more foreign language study in response to political, economic and military threats. The complexity of today’s world requires that students be better educated than they were twenty years ago, and the demands to increase the rate of knowledge acquisition continue to grow.

Moreover, while expectations for knowledge acquisition are increasing, more students than ever are required to achieve at high levels of performance. The notion of public education was first implemented in Massachusetts in 1635 with the founding of Boston Latin. But at that time “public” referred to only a handful of white young men of certain social and economic stature. In the nineteenth century an elementary school education was considered sufficient for the majority of children and only an elite 10% graduated from secondary school. It wasn’t until the 1950s that 70% of students graduated from high school. Since then, there has been a drive to expand the number of high school graduates to prepare them for further education and improve employment prospects. Over the past fifty years, the gender, race and economic gap has been closing. Significant progress has also been made to integrate and educate students with mental and physical disabilities. Just a few years ago, the Federal government implemented the No Child Left Behind achievement requirement as a basis for distributing federal education funding. Schools must demonstrate yearly progress towards universal proficiency as defined by the federal government, and must achieve target proficiency by the year 2014.

All these increased expectations for education require increased funding. Since the mid 1960s K-12 per pupil spending has more than tripled. Education is an art that requires manpower and defies automation. Student learning is not a process that can be accelerated in the same way as many private sector industries can. While incremental efficiencies are possible with technology, teaching remains a labor-intensive pursuit. Thus, while students are expected to learn more than ever and more students are expected to achieve minimum standards, the process remains personnel driven, with more teachers needed and at higher levels of qualification.

Since education is labor driven, it is wages and benefits that incur the major costs and drive cost increases. Everyone can understand the need to incorporate cost of living and professional experience in wage calculations. However, employee benefits, especially health care, have recently been the major driver in budget increases. While these benefit costs are not technically part of the Weston school budget, they contribute to the overall budgetary burden of the town. Until the health care industry finds a way to reduce the cost to deliver health care this will continue to drive budgets upwards. Furthermore, local governments’ ability to alter the terms of employee benefits is greatly restricted by existing state regulations that control contracts and negotiation.

III. Who Should Pay for Education?
The Federal government has never contributed more than 10% of local school budgets and, since it is based on an income formula, federal aid has never been a significant factor in Weston’s budget. And despite rhetoric that acknowledges the importance of education, Massachusetts ranked 41st in the State’s contribution to public education in FY 2005. In fact, since FY 2002 only one state cut a greater percentage of its nominal aid to local schools. Additionally, while real state aid per student declined by 2.6% nationally during this period, in Massachusetts, real state aid per student was reduced by 13.7%, the largest reduction in the nation. Weston, in particular, receives very little State aid; at the current aid level of $652 per student, only one town, Dover, receives less.

Thus, as an increasing share of the cost of education falls to local governments, it is the local taxpayer who bears the burden. Local government receives revenues primarily from real estate taxes, which are levied according to a particular property’s share of the town’s total assessed value. Weston’s median household’s real estate value in FY 2005 was $915,600. That household’s taxes in FY 2005 were $8,662, or $9.46 per thousand dollars of assessed real estate value. The cost of education comprised approximately 65% of the town’s budget, so the median household’s contribution to education was approximately $5,630 last year.

Weston’s taxpayers have historically demanded educational excellence and they should feel confident that the School’s administration is efficiently utilizing their tax dollars to provide it. Beyond tax dollars, significant additional parental contributions distinguish the quality of Weston’s public schools from other systems. Parents significantly supplement the tax supported budget through hundreds of thousands of dollars in structured and unstructured fees, donations, and ticket purchases for student performances. Even volunteering in the schools has a monetary value. When parents are engaged in the learning process by donating time and financial support, education meets community expectations and budgetary pressure is alleviated for the whole community.

A public education was created to ensure that every student receives the appropriate programs and services to succeed regardless of ability to pay. There should not be additional financial requirements for families. For this reason and given how much parents already voluntarily supplement the school budget, the School Committee is opposed to blanket fees. While economic pressure has led us to levy some amount of blanket fee for the past two years, we continue to question our authority to do so and have reduced the fee as we explore additional ways to generate revenues to supplement the tax-based budget. We believe there are privileges and conveniences for which we do feel we can and should levy fees. We are currently analyzing options and their costs to determine whether or not they provide sufficient savings or revenues to justify their implementation.

Weston parents who rely on public schools to educate their children have been confident that the community will continue to support public education with its tax dollars. Many Weston parents have the financial means to select private schools but do not. They and many residents without children understand the political and social benefits of community funded education and have chosen to live in Weston where the community has a reputation for supporting excellent public education.

IV. The Social Contract
When considering the decision to support or reject increased taxation, the taxpayer may recall the social contract. Annual funding for municipal services are closely linked with delivery of those services, and any benefit received is mainly expensed in that year. Expenses tend to increase, economies fluctuate, and each year taxpayers can weigh the costs and benefits of those municipal services. In contrast, education is a service that must be delivered and funded over time and the benefits are realized over decades in the future. So, if educational costs are cumulative and the benefits are deferred, how should the average taxpayer apply this cost/benefit equation to him or herself? In fact, the social contract as it applies to education could be viewed as an “extended payment plan” with extremely favorable terms.

Most Weston households have had children who at some point attended the public schools. How much families pay for educating each child is a function of the value of the family’s real estate assessment, the number of children in the household, and the current cost of education. The greater the value of the real estate, the more the resident contributes to the community pot. If there are more children in the household, the cost to educate each child diminishes.

For the purpose of discussion, if we consider the current median tax bill in Weston of $8,600, of which roughly 65% goes to education, then the household contributes $5,600 to education each year. The Town’s actual cost to educate a child in the Weston Public Schools is more than $10,000 per year. So, in simple terms, a family with two children in the median Weston home may thus pay only $5,600 to receive $20,000 worth of educational services in one year. Over the twelve years of public schooling, they may pay $67,200 in constant dollars toward the $240,000 required to prepare their children for the world. They would need to live in Weston paying taxes without school children for another thirty years before they have effectively “reimbursed” the town for their children’s education and before their taxes begin to contribute to the education of other children. When compared with private education, the terms and value of this social contract are even more advantageous. Results of a survey of Massachusetts independent schools indicate a median tuition of $18,597 per year per child, paid annually. As long as Weston schools are known for their quality, parents will choose to live here for the educational value they receive.

In fact, supporting public schools is a sound and effective investment in the community. In particular, “high quality school districts provide services valued in excess of the higher taxes that they levy.” In Massachusetts, a $500 increase in per-pupil expenditures increases average home prices by 2.2%. In Weston, the total assessed value of real estate grew 149% from FY1996 to FY 2006 while the amount spent to educate a child increased only 44% in this decade.

In contrast, possible results of reduced funding for education include larger classes, reduced educational opportunities and options, and an increase in private school enrollment. Parents choose private education for many reasons, including their assessment of the quality or appropriateness of the public schools. Ten years ago, 14.5 % of students attended private school. Currently, 17% of Weston students, or one out of every six children, do so. In the worst case, the Town would effectively be deciding that it no longer accepts responsibility for educating all its future citizens. Access to quality education in Weston would become increasingly segregated by income, like many other towns already are, and real estate values would decline as home buyers are no longer willing to pay a premium to live in Weston over other options.
V. The Choice to Support or Reject an Override
Proposition 2 ½ was originally intended to limit local government’s authority to increase taxes. However, the request for an override isn’t inherently evil. It doesn’t necessarily indicate wasteful government. In fact, the override provision was added to give voters the authority to approve tax increases over the Proposition 2 ½ threshold. Given the authority to approve the Town’s budget, taxpayers have the opportunity and the responsibility to annually reconsider what kind of community they want.

The Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee are primarily responsible for managing municipal finances while the School Committee is responsible for school finances. The Boards of Selectmen through the twenty four years since the enactment of Proposition 2 ½ have recommended an override in fourteen of those years and voters have rejected to do so only once, in 1998. These committees work together every year to develop a responsible and efficient budget. Town leaders are mindful of the tax burden and have reduced its reserve funds, introduced fees, and cut services to avoid or limit overrides while maintaining essential services. While the town has managed to balance services and tax growth, Weston now shares the same precarious situation with most towns throughout the Commonwealth.

All students today must know, and are expected to master, much more than their parents or grandparents did. In education, maintaining level service does not maintain level quality. As pedagogical goals increase, schools must improve services to meet these rising expectations. The less a community is seen to supports its schools, the more parents with means will opt for private schools. Other families who cannot afford $18,000 per year per child would not have the luxury of such a choice. The quality of their education depends on the quality of school administrators, teachers, resources and facilities. We welcome any citizen to meet with our administrators and tour our buildings to better understand the teaching and learning process and to consider the program in the context of today’s world. When we invest in our children’s education, we are also investing in our community and our own futures. These are the future professionals that will determine our collective lives. They will make public policy, health and human service decisions, contribute to our economy and influence our culture.

So when we are voting for or against a budget, we are really determining what kind of community we want to live in and what kind of citizens we want to produce. The School Committee is charged with producing leaders and constructive members of our society and Weston has had an excellent track record by almost any measure. All public schools should be as successful and all communities should be so fortunate.