Trimming Fat Necessary for Fairer System

Judge Howard Manning ruled last week that the state must develop a plan over the next year to ensure that the neediest students in rich and poor school districts are better educated.

The catch is that state and local funds in all districts must be allocated as effectively as possible before the court considers whether to require additional funding.

Yet leaders already are looking past this fundamental part of Manning's ruling. They claim that the judge's mandate is unreasonable, given the schools' current resources and efforts to be the best schools in America.

Apparently, being the best involves programming for the average and elite students instead of the needy.

Manning explicitly states in his ruling that funds should be diverted from other programs, the "frills and whistles" of public schools, including dance programs, multiple foreign language offerings and college preparatory curricula. Frills could even include vocational programs, not just AP courses.

These programs, Manning writes, are not guaranteed by the N.C. Constitution. Instead, the state's constitution guarantees a solid basic education for every student.

This requirement must be met before the schools pay for the extras.

While Manning wants the N.C. General Assembly to reallocate its educational funding priorities to satisfy the basic educational needs for at-risk children, eliminating electives seems to be a foreign concept for North Carolina's educational leaders.

For instance, Neil Pedersen, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools superintendent, says he is concerned about at-risk children, but he seems more worried that students not at risk will flee to private schools if their advanced educations are lessened in favor of programs for needier students.

And despite the ruling, leaders of Wake County schools facing a budget crunch are looking first to eliminate their Accelerated Learning Program, which focuses on helping low-performing students.

At the top, N.C. Superintendent Mike Ward has said the state cannot "carry out our obligations to our most vulnerable children in the system" without additional financial resources.

Meanwhile, Sen. Howard Lee could propose legislation this week that would funnel additional resources to the state's poorest schools. Lee said does not plan to cut equal amounts of educational spending in other areas.

Despite Manning's ruling, it seems that North Carolina's leaders are unwilling or unable to imagine sacrificing the privilege of the elite for the survival of the children who would otherwise drop out.

I was lucky enough to experience the ultimate college-prep curriculum at the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics, but I also spent 11 years in a school district where the dance classes and the elite choral groups could have been sacrificed to ensure that more than half of my ninth-grade civics class graduated.

The arts may be integral to producing well-rounded individuals, but these courses are not components of a strong basic education.

Every school system has fat in its programs. Administrators must prioritize.

Heck, students at NCSSM work in the kitchens, bathrooms and grounds crews to save money that would otherwise be spent on salaries. In return, the state pays for the students to live and study in an advanced educational environment.

It's a matter of trade-offs and sacrifices.

Legislators and educators around the state should buck up. Before they insist that they can't comply with Manning's orders, they should take a honest look at which parts of the curriculum are truly integral to providing a basic education for all students. The rest is just fluff that provides a superior education for a few at the expense of many.

Columnist Anne Fawcett can be reached at fawcetta@hotmail.com.