Spin City: Grosse Pointe hires PR firm - Local History Archives

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Sh^ v Uv\s (he popularity of astronon\\
^nd itahan mm A P courses last,
\s\n as ouc reason wl\v students at
North may not have room for AP
courses in their schedules. She said
other top-level courses, such as miemh\olog\\
journalism and aivhitecture,
compete with AP courses in students'
schedules.
Twenty-one AP courses are ottered
at each of the high schools. Last year,
4Sti South students enrolled in one or
more AP classes. At North, 282 students
took one or more AP courses.
There were 360 graduates at South
last year and 323 graduates at North.
Using the Newsweek scores of 2.138
and 1.212 for South and North,
respectively, that means 770 AP tests
John Minnis
Editor and General
Manager
(313) 343-5590
rubliohcd Weekly by
Antccbo Publishers
96 Kcrchev.il Ave.
Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236
EDITORIAL
(313) 882-0294
Margie Reins Smith,
Assistant fiditor/Foatiire Editor
Chuck Klonkc, Sports Editor
Ann Fouty, SUff Writer
Bob St. John, Staff Writer
Hrad Lirtdberg, Staff Writor
BethQuinn, Staff Writer
Diane Morelli, Editorial Assistant
Betty Brosseau, Proofreader
Gilbert Gray, Copy Editor
Stefan Cross, Intern
Grosse 1'oiutc North High School
'Reform' school budget 5VTir-^£
By John Palffy
Grosse Pointe Park
Ten years after Proposal A, the
Grosse Pointe board of education
is finally realizing that.
. . > * trimming \ tin* > f at" in school
spending is not enough and is threatening
outright elimination of funding
for some traditionally popular and
strong student programs such as athletics.
Grosse Pointe is not facing budget
cuts alone. Nearly 50 school districts,
mostly poor and urban, may not stay
open through all of next year, according
to the head of the Michigan School
Business Officials Association
(MSBOA).
In response to statewide education
cost restraints, at the top of the school
board's recommendations to community
activists is "lobby Lansing for
reform of Proposal A."
This is political folly and naivete at
its zenith; one only has to examine the
recent political history of education
spending to grasp that Lansing will
not expropriate tax dollars from middle
class districts to bail out Grosse
Pointe. Reform of Proposal A can only
result in more money coming from
Grosse Pointe taxpayers than would
be returned to Grosse Pointe students.
Instead of moaning about their bad
luck and passing the buck to Lansing,
board members should take the lead
in being creative and innovative in
energizing the community to restructure
local education spending and
raise millions in private tax deductible
funding for our schools.
They need to educate seniors and
other households without children in
the public schools that their property
values, perhaps more then any other
community in the state of Michigan,
are directly tied to the quality and reputation
of our schools.
To understand the politics of the fiscal
crisis, we need to reflect on the history
of Proposal A and the dominant
political ideology governing education
spending in Lansing.
Before condemning Proposal A,
property owners should recall that
they received a huge property tax cut
in .1994; my tax bill is nearly $6,000
less than it might otherwise be without
Proposal A. That did not come
without cost, but it should not be forgotten
before running to Lansing to
undo the property tax genie.
More salient to the education agenda,
Proposal A represented the implementation
of egalitarian spending.
Taxing authority was virtually
stripped from communities and transferred
to the state; funding for poor
schools was dramatically increased
with promises to keep pace with infla­
tion, and funding for wealthy districts,
such as Grosse Pointe, was capped
with promises that it would not keep
up with inflation.
When enacted in 1995, Proposal A
virtually assured' that 'Grosse Pointe 1
school funding would be reduced'by 5
to 10 percent in real terms by 2005,
and another 1/2 percent or more annually
thereafter. Reality is now settling
in.
Athletics and other extra-curricular
activities must move dramatically and
substantially toward self-funding, but
eliminating their budgets in five years
is a problem, not a solution. Athletics
represents less than 1 percent of the
budget; so by taking the draconian
measure of total elimination, the
board risks creating a firestorm and
alienating the families of 60 percent of
the high school student body that participates
in sports — without any
assurances of buttressing core academics.
The board needs to abandon the
false premise that its "hands are tied
by Lansing" and that "85 percent of
the budget is untouchable." It must
start thinking budget reform, not cuts.
The difference is more then semantic.
Reform implies positive change to
improve services despite significant
across-the-board cost savings. Cuts
imply mere reduction in services and
send a very negative message.
The board also needs to stop distributing
directions to Lansing, get out of
389 St. Clair and become the schools'
biggest cheerleaders and fundraisers,
Lansing took away our power to tax,
but not our power to raise money.
Grosse Pointe taxpayers have saved
millions of dollars in property taxes
over the years, but they risk giving it
all back if Proposal A is undone.
Instead of sending $2 to Lansing to get
$1 in return, the board should encourage
local businesses and homeowners
to volunteer tax deductible donations
to school endowments, matched by
innovative savings from reform.
How realistic is the goal? Local private
schools raise millions at a time,
Five local municipal foundations raise
hundreds of thousands of dollars a
year to fund projects such as community
centers at the public parks. The
current budget shortfall amounts to
about $100 per district household, but
that will increase more than inflation
every year. Raising an average of $200
(including pay for play and other fees
and contributions) annually from each
household, on a tax deductible and voluntary
basis, and increasing that
amount each year for inflation, combined
with equally innovative and cre-
See PALFFY, page 10A
were taken at South last year, versus
391 at North.
For perspective, if every senior took
one AP test in a school year, and AP
tests were limited to seniors, then
that school would earn a score of 1. If
every senior took two AP tests, then
the score would be 2.
Sometimes sophomores and juniors
qualify to take AP classes, and, of
course, not all seniors tako AP courses.
Some students may take many AP
classes, while others take one or none.
IV) further complicate the issue, not
all students taking AP courses choose
to take the AP tests, which are optional,
and students do not have to take
an AP class in order to take an AP
test.
According to Newsweek, about 15
percent of high school juniors and
seniors nationwide take AP or IB
tests.
"We always encourage students to
take more challenging courses and
more AP courses," Dr. Allan said.
Newsweek justifies its ranking
using AP test-taking as "one of the
best measures available to compare a
wide range of students' readiness for
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