Interview with Robert Burgess on the Perfect Storm for Urban Schools
Announcer: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education, a weekly show featuring interviews with community leaders, school administrators, school business officials, and individuals who are passionate about the future of Michigan Education. Now, here is your host for Inside Michigan Education, Rob Huisingh.
Rob Huisingh: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education, this week we are joined in the Foxbright Podcast Studio by Mr. Robert Burgess. Robert is the Chief Financial Officer for Lakeshore Public Schools out in Stevensville and he is here today to talk to us about what quite literally could be coined a perfect storm for many Urban School Districts in terms of their financial condition that they are in. Welcome Rob, it is a pleasure to have you on the show.
Robert Burgess: Good morning, thank you.
Rob Huisingh: We always like to take just a few minutes to have our guests talk about their background, who they are, and how they came to their position, and then also, if you would tell us a little bit about Lakeshore Public Schools.
Robert Burgess: Well, first of all, my own background; I am a Michigan native; I was born in Saginaw County. I moved to West Michigan back in 1972 when I attended a Aquinas college and then eventually got my undergraduate and graduate degrees from Grand Valley. I have a Bachelors Degree in Accounting; I also have an undergrad minor in the English which is kind of a unique circumstance. I am a former Armed Forces Disk Jockey for Armed Forces Radio in the United States Navy during the Vietnam Era and I have a Masters in Educational Leadership.
Rob Huisingh: And Lakeshore Public Schools, tell us about the school.
Robert Burgess: Lakeshore is about an average-sized School District in our state. We have about 3000 students; we are south of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph in Berrien County. We are average in the respect that we are about 3,000 students; however, 95% of the schools in our state have more revenue per student than we do. You know what, I am okay with that; because we are a school district that has a small percentage of students, we have lower than the average of kids that have free and reduced lunch. Less than 20% of our total population fits in that category. So we do not have the needs that some of our rural schools or some of our urban school have in terms of having more children in poverty that come to our school doors.
Rob Huisingh: Yeah, Rob earlier this year, we ran a series of interview talking about what we had called the fundamental inequities in Michigan Public School Funding and what I found particular interesting about your view and approach, as you talk to me about this, is that outside of politics and outside of other issues you really address this issue from a purely economic and accounting perspective; obviously, being a Chief Financial Officer that is your approach. But looking at it from that point, it really seems as though, there is this convergence of several factors that are all, sort of, tilted against the poor urban school districts and I just through could you help frame this in terms of these factors and maybe the first one we could look at is physical facilities and what is going on there?
Robert Burgess: Certainly, one of the issues that urban schools and also rural schools are dealing with, but urban schools in particular; and I will say this, I am a former Budget Director of the Grand Rapids Public Schools, although I left Grand Rapids about 15 years ago. So, I do not have all the data current necessarily, although I do keep in contact with many of my colleagues in urban schools and Lansing and Grand Rapids and elsewhere. Part of the problem is there is a huge disparity in tax base between school districts.
So, you will have the schools like Inkster which has $50,000 approximately in taxable value per student. On the other hand of the spectrum, you will have schools that have more than a million dollars per student in taxable value, like New Buffalo in south west Michigan or some of the districts in Oakland County.
It is impossible for a district, like in Inkster, like a Benton Harbor, like a Grand Rapids, to be able to levy enough property taxes that a district like a Bloomfield Hills or like a Forest Hills would be able to levy in order to maintain their facilities, in order to build new facilities. It just cannot happen and they'd have to levy four, five, maybe ten, twenty times as much in property taxes to get the same amount per student that some of the poorer districts have.
Rob Huisingh: Those districts are probably more likely to not accept a bond attempt.
Robert Burgess: You have got all kinds of issues related there; obviously you have probably poor communities, you have less taxable value, your home values are less, home quality is less quite honestly. So, you have a situation where the poor communities may not be able to afford it to begin with.
So, it is a combination of factors that is against them. The Central High School in Downtown Grand Rapids was built in the 1890's and there are many schools like that in our urban areas that were built more than 100 years ago. They are old, they need upgrading, they are not energy efficient, they are not probably very well handicapped accessible, although they have had to upgrade those over the years, obviously to minimally comply, but they are not the ideal facility that you would get in a suburban area where you have brand new high schools being built on the outskirts of Grand Rapids or on the outskirts of Detroit or on the outskirts of Benton Harbor that are energy efficient, they are state of the art, they have beautiful auditoriums, they have beautiful libraries and other facilities, science labs and things, technology that are not available to children in urban and rural areas.
Rob Huisingh: So, in a sense we have older building that are less efficient, they are going to cost more to maintain, they are going to cost more to heat and as compared to buildings which are being brand new, which are going to cost less. So, you actually have a higher cost structure in the infrastructure, in the actual fixed cost of the buildings.
Robert Burgess: Absolutely, just put that aside, put the economics aside, just aesthetics of those situations too. The children that walk in to those buildings on a daily basis, many of them participate in Band, they participate in sports; they go visit those suburban schools and they see what those kids have available to them and they do not have it in their school district. So, psychologically, sociologically, what is that telling those kids?
Rob Huisingh: Disenfranchised.
Robert Burgess: They certainly understand very quickly that there are issues of social justice in our society that have not been addressed.
Rob Huisingh: Now in addition, we have covered this before, but with 'Proposal A' and to ensure that the passage of 'Proposal A' We hold many schools harmless and what that means is that their level of funding, from the government, is actually higher per student than other districts, that is correct, yes?
Robert Burgess: Yes, currently there is about 50 School Districts that have more than $8,400 per student, one of the highest is Bloomfield again, where little more than $12,000 per student. That compares with the minimum foundation allowance per student have about $7,200 this year.
Rob Huisingh: Exactly, one of the issues is that with schools of choice, the concept being that students have this ability to move from one school to another and they get to choose the school that they are interested in attending. When a student leaves a school district, the money follows the student in its entirety, but from what I understand from you, the cost structure does not change in a like amount to the amount of revenue that is lost or gained.
Robert Burgess: You are right, in terms of economics or in terms of accounting, it is very simple, it is Cost Accounting 101, there is fixed and variable cost. The fixed costs are the cost that you have regardless of how many children are there, you have to maintain the facilities, you have to pay the bills in terms of the insurance, in the school buses and those types of things.
The variable cost may be very minor; in the case if one child leaves, you don't lose $7,200 per student, you might have to purchase a few less text books, you might have to purchase a few less Crayola's and pencils. But the reality is you do not lose $7,200 in cost when one student leaves. Now, multiply that Grand Rapids Public Schools has lost 4000 students in the last five years. They are actually receiving something like $30 or $35 million less in state aid than they were five years ago.
Now, on a per student base, it is more; although we have had modest increases in school aid the last five years, they are getting a little bit more on a per student basis, but they have lost money. So, their fixed costs have stayed the same for all practical purposes.
They can adjust them to some extent, but they have certainly lost more than they have been able to cut in terms of fixed cost. So they are in a never-ending cycle, just cycling down and down as those students are leaving and either going to public school academies or going to neighboring schools and schools of choice.
Rob Huisingh: So in effect, what we are talking about is that once school begins on this path of losing students, they fall into this cycle and they are losing more money, then their cost structure is going down for each one of those students which means they have to cut and what they are going to cut is services, they are going to have to cut and amputate services that aren't necessary and all this is going to do is accelerate then the exodus of students from the public school.
Robert Burgess: Detroit Public Schools is an example and we would like to beat up on Detroit in our state, it is unfortunate, but we need Detroit to succeed if we are going to improve our economy, we certainly need the City of Detroit to be a star for us and not a detriment. Detroit Public School has just closed more than 30 schools and I think just last year and the problem is they have put a halt on that for the current year, parents are angry, parents are mad, their neighborhood schools are closing and so they are looking at alternatives and say, "Hey, I will go over to school district ABC next door or there is a public school academy, I will get on the waiting list," or in some cases they are fortunate enough to be able to attend a parochial school or other school so and god bless them for that to have that opportunity.
I am not criticizing schools of choice, I am not criticizing public schools academies, I certainly will not criticize our parochial schools; they are a blessing for many of those parents, for many of those students. I guess what I am saying what happens to the kids that are left behind.
That is the issue, it is an economic issue, I think it is moral issue in terms of trying to ensure that all of our children in our State have an opportunity. The children in urban schools, the children in rural schools are already disadvantaged. They come from poor homes, they come from homes that in some cases may not have a father or they come form homes where they are struggling economically and then we are going to compound it further by putting them in schools that facilities are not as nice as the suburban schools and perhaps do not have as much money in many cases as the suburban schools and certainly are in, if you will, the spiral going down and down in terms of cutting, cutting, cutting constantly.
So you have mentioned the perfect storm in terms of describing it, I guess you could call it a death spiral almost in terms of what is happening in our situation and I am not sure if this continues I do not think we are going to -- we do not like the results now, are we going to like the results even more or less 5, 10, 20 years from now if this trend continues.
Rob Huisingh: Despite the desire that schools of choice results in everyone having the ability to move from one School District to another the reality is that there are many students that are in either economic positions or socioeconomic conditions that do not allow them to move form one School District to another.
Robert Burgess: There are parents that certainly do not have transportation available to them that would readily enable them to participate in schools of choice, maybe they work odd shifts and it becomes difficult. We see that in our school district, we have schools of choice students from Benton Harbor and the parents who are fortunate enough to participate in that, sometimes they drop their kids off way early in the morning or they pick them up way late at night or there is a kind teacher or administrator that maybe gives the child a ride home.
So it is difficult for them; many of our areas, we do not necessarily have public transportation for school busses or just public city buses to be able to get those kids out to the suburbs and it is the same problems with jobs for folks in the urban areas, but it is compounded for kids because they cannot drive, they cannot take care of themselves. So they are left at the mercy of whatever the local school has available to them.
In many cases that local school is a caring, considerate school, full of caring teachers and principals in the urban area, but they are struggling and they do not have the resources to provide the kids that are available to them in the suburban areas.
Rob Huisingh: Then fundamentally, statically I gather that the students that are left in the schools that are not moving to other schools, that these students in many cases represent higher cost to the district.
Robert Burgess: Oh absolutely, if you have a school district that is predominantly poor, that has a high percentage of free and reduced lunch to children, those kids probably need additional social work services, they probably need additional counseling services. Let alone remedial Math, English, Science etcetera just to get the kids up to grade level, if you will, and to be able to meet their needs, their emotional psychological and other needs that those kids have just to be able to feel safe and comfortable in school.
Let alone in urban areas as we know there are sometimes unfortunately situations in which they have a need for greater security. So they spend additional dollars on security cameras and perhaps security officers to help in those buildings; truant officers to try to make sure the kids get to school; so there are additional costs that are built in to those areas as well that just compound the problem.
Rob Huisingh: Not a pretty picture and that is today, it is not a pretty picture today; going out ten year what are we going to have?
Robert Burgess: Well as I mentioned if the trend continues, we are not going to like it. We already see a situation, I left Grand Rapids about 15 years ago, at that time approximately 50% of the children in the Grand Rapids Public Schools were Caucasian, about 50% of the children were minority. And I might not have the statistics exactly alike, but that is about what it is. That has changed dramatically; they have lost 7,000 children in Grand Rapids Public Schools in the last 15 years or so, approximately 25% of their children. The number of minority children is actually greater than it was 15 years ago. It is the number of Caucasian children that are not in the Grand Rapids Public Schools.
Michigan State University did a study last year on the effects of public schools academies, on public schools on regular public schools and in some cases, not all, in many cases public school academies are beneficial to a community, but there are instances and I contend that in Kent County that they have hurt the public schools and pulled kids away from the public schools who, the families want better for their children you cannot fault them, but the reality is they have hurt the kids that are left behind and created a situation that our schools are more segregated, schools where there are more children in poverty and their needs aren't being met.
So I guess I am here today to talk about the needs. I do not have the answers, I do not have the solutions, but I think we need to be considerate; we need to think about it. I think in my email to your originally I talked about and I will say it from a moral standpoint, we usually do not say that in public education, but Mother Teresa talks about and she says it this way from a standpoint that "Whatever you neglected to do the least of these, you neglected to do unto me," and I think that is what we have got to do; focus back on the needs of children in urban and rural areas and realize the decks are already stacked against them, let us not create more of a problem for those kids, let us try to lift them up as opposed to holding them down.
Rob Huisingh: Truly a need for some type of an intervention in terms of how we are funding our schools is important. Well Rob, I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us today and sharing your insights with us again; it has been a pleasure to have you on the show.
Robert Burgess: Thank you.
Rob Huisingh: If you would like to contact Robert Burgess he can be reached by telephone at (269) 428-1400, again that telephone number is (269) 428-1400. And you can visit Lakeshore Public Schools online at www.lakeshoreschools.k12.mi.us again that URL is www.lakeshoreschools.k12.mi.us. Until next week, this is Rob Huisingh with Inside Michigan Education.
Announcer: This has been the Inside Michigan Education Podcast; comments are welcome through our website at www.insidemieducation.com, or by email to feedback@insidemieducation.com. We hope you have enjoyed the show.