MMSD: More $, No Accountability

Next year Madison’s school district will spend 8% more than it did the year before. That will be $20,300 per student or 15% more than the average district spends on a per student basis. School taxes on the average Madison home will go up by $834.

And what will we get for all that money?

That’s the problem because the district will only measure “success” by inputs. So, teachers will get a pay increase of just under 5%, while general inflation is running at about 2.3%. The district will start building eight new school buildings while they renovate two more. It will also expand four-year-old kindergarten and maintain lower class sizes in kindergarten and first grade with a focus on reading. They’ll hire more janitors.

I can’t disagree with much of that. Teachers should be paid more and it’s fine with me if they’re doing a little better than inflation. A focus on reading is right and who can object to cleaner buildings? I do think the district is spending way too much on new buildings when its enrollment has been declining and is projected to keep going down, but maintaining the physical infrastructure is a good thing to do.

But the district is not holding itself accountable where it matters: student performance. For whatever reason, Madison taxpayers have never demanded that the school board set goals for the results of all that investment. Last November voters overwhelmingly approved two referendums, totaling $607 million, the largest increase in MMSD history. And they did that on blind faith. The district never tried to trim costs to keep the numbers down and they never once offered to explain how all that new money would result in things like better test scores, lower truancy rates or a narrowing of the racial achievement gap.

The best of those investments is the focus on reading at an early age. I’m excited for that. But I’d like to see the district announce some specific goals with regard to reading scores in a few years.

This is part of a broader problem in government. Too much is measured only in inputs while actual results go ignored most of the time. And, of course, that can work in the opposite direction. When the now mercifully departed Elon Musk gleefully took his chain saw to the Federal government, he never stopped to ask what the results would be. He just slashed the inputs. How many people will starve or needlessly die of diseases because of his reckless cuts to USAID?

What we need at all levels of government is accountability. If taxpayers are going to pay more, then what can we expect in terms of measurable results? And if we’re going to get a tax cut — as Trump is insisting upon — then what can we expect to have to give up?