Crist Stumbles - Florida to Consider “The 65 Percent Solution,” Again

Florida Governor Charlie Crist has enjoyed immense popularity thus far but as the state struggles with an enormous budget shortfall, the Governor appears to have unknowingly unearthed a flawed legislative proposal that was actually defeated by the Florida Legislature two years back. As one segment of a three prong attack to address the budget problems, Gov. Crist has proposed a reconsideration of a measure dubbed “The 65 Percent Solution.”

The number reflects the specific percentage of expenditures devoted to the classroom, in other words, under the “The 65 Percent Solution,” 65% of a school districts’ operational funds must be spent in the classroom. Crist in fact seeks to make it the “The 70 Percent Solution” by the year 2010.

Crist is basing the push, he says, on an effort to protect teachers and students from the deep budget cuts facing education this year. Instead of teachers and classroom related cuts, Crist wants to focus the knife on administrators and overhead costs.

Once a National Movement
The so-called “65 Percent Mandate” or “65 Percent Solution” was the brainchild of a gentleman by the name of Patrick M. Byrne, the president and chair of Overstock.com, Inc. He was the first to coin the phrase the “65 Percent Solution” as part of an organizational initiative called First Class Education.

His premise was that schools were spending far too much on administrative and bureaucratic expenses. At the time, Byrne set a goal of adoption of the law in all 50 states by the end of 2008.

Back in 2006, many states fell into the jargon and were considering such legislation. One of the key rationales was that Byrne insisted that a 65 percent mandate for instructional expenses would inject another $14 billion into education nationally without raising taxes.

At that time, national statistics compiled by the National Center for Educational Services indicated that 61.5 percent of education operating budgets were spent on direct classroom instruction. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that only four states spent 65 percent or more in classrooms.

Of course, one key hang up with the measure was trying to define classroom instruction. One state’s proposal (Colorado) excluded such things as transportation, food service, security personnel, analysis of testing data, and teacher education. Other states considering adopting the legislation insisted that the analysis of testing data and teacher education were definitively part of the classroom instruction role. Still other states that considered the measure struggled as to where to place the services such as counselors and social workers.

The problem was, ironically, that no matter how classroom instruction was defined, the “65 Percent Mandate” appeared to be independent of school quality as well as a perceived over-abundance of administrative positions. Interestingly, at the time, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty backed the legislation calling it “a common-sense idea that would help ensure better accountability in our schools.”

His statements were immediately assailed as educators pointed out that the districts of Edina, Stillwater, Minnetonka, and Eden Prairie, Minnesota’s most successful school districts, in fact spent less than 65 percent on the classroom. Other states soon realized that the number was arbitrary and had nor real correlation with high performing schools.

In addition, as far as high administrative costs, the State of Maine was pushing school consolidation based on an over-duplication of administrative services. Proving that a failure to examine real data is not strictly a Republican issue, Maine’s Democratic Governor John Baldacci continues to insist Maine is top heavy administratively despite the fact that Maine was one of the four states (Utah, Tennessee, and New York) to actually meet the 65% measure at the time.

Given that the “65 Percent Solution” was not a clear indicator of school quality nor even a measure of a school district’s administrative overhead, the idea fell apart fairly quickly. Only four states would eventually adopt some form of the law.

Rejected Once Already in Florida
Florida lawmakers rejected the idea in 2006. At the time, concerns mounted over how to define classroom spending.

Already, the expectation is that the measure will get hung up over the the definition of what constitutes classroom spending. The National Center for Education Statistics defines classroom spending to include teacher salaries, classroom materials and salaries for athletic programs. In turn, administrators, guidance counselors, cafeteria and maintenance workers, and bus drivers are not included in the national definition.

Currently, using the federal definition, the average in Florida is 59 percent. Of course, trying to classify some school personnel as less important than others has never been met with great favor. In Minnesota, folks insisted such an approach was both “arbitrary and wrong.”

We at first did not want to chide Crist too much as his idea resurfaced just as Florida faces once of its worst budget years in decades. The state will need to cut in the vicinity of $260 million from the money allocated for schools.
Unfortunately, Crist immediately claimed not to have known of the prior attempted movement, stating in the local papers, “I did not realize that we were mimicking something else,” Crist said. “I just think it’s important to spend as much as possible in the classroom, on children instead of administration.” Such a statement reminds everyone how often our politicians fail to put in the appropriate time and research into proposals. Crist has since responded that he would favor a broader interpretation of “classroom spending,” one that would include more services to students.

Clearly, the “The 65% Percent Solution” was another of those measures from someone outside education that sounded good on the surface but soon fell apart due to the fact that the caps on certain aspects of school spending were arbitrary. The concept soon fell by the wayside as it should have, dying what most thought was a natural death.

Except now in Florida where the Governor has resurrected the arbitrary formula as a key component of solving a looming budget crises. Unfortunately, the very popular Crist has seemingly demonstrated that same lack of judgment that appears to be plaguing politicians everywhere these days.

Pawlenty photo by Wigwam.