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School Results
The new political truism in education seems to be that spending more money has produced poorer results.
Like all truisms it should be greeted with skepticism.
It is interesting to compare results from the state’s Outcome Accountability Project with spending on teacher salaries. A story in the March 27 Rappahannock News reported that Rappahannock teacher salaries generally lag behind state averages but exceed slightly the average of the five surrounding counties. To a large extent standardized test scores show that same pattern. Rappahannock scores generally lag behind the state average but exceed the average of surrounding counties.
More specifically Rappahannock teacher salaries trail those in Fauquier County and so do standardized test scores.
The likely explanation for this is not that spending more money on teacher salaries produces higher standardized test scores but that a school system drawing from a population interested in education and likely to score high on standardized tests will also benefit from those patrons’ insistance on adequate funding for education.
The most often quoted statistic used in support of the truism that spending more money has produced poorer results is the drop in SAT scores. Over the past several years a higher and higher percentage of students have decided to take the tests. In the face of this switch from a test of the elite to a test for average students the scores have declined. But that result is far less surprising than the fact that they have not dropped as precipitously as might have been expected.
Certainly concluding that if spending, more produces poorer results, spending less will produce better results is extremely risky. The result of a sharp cut in the school budget will be less money for teacher salaries, poor teacher morale, the decision by many teachers to seek employment elsewhere, parents with the means seeking an alternative to county public schools and a drop in standardized test scores.
Far too much energy is being wasted in seeking to escape the real truism in education — you generally get what you pay for.
Fire Tax
When the Board of Supervisors voted to adopt a fire levy, several expressed concern that supporters of the fire and rescue squads would decrease their support claiming they were supporting the departments by paying taxes.
There are widespread indications that that is indeed happening.
The idea of the fire levy was to reduce the need for fundraising to support ongoing operating expenses. The fire levy does nothing to get rid of the need to raise funds for upgrading equipment.
The constant demand on squad members to raise funds for operations left most departments with a backlog of unmet capital | needs. - These departments need the continued support of their patrons in addition to the fire levy.
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