Reading in schools hit with budget cuts

School districts will lose a $2.5 million chunk from a new reading program — a 17 percent cut — because lawmakers failed to restore that money before adjourning Wednesday night, state education officials said Friday.

They also won't get $16 million to help prepare youngsters for higher math standards, or share in $6 million to help struggling students pass the high school graduation test.

As the dust settles on the 2005 Legislature, the State Board of Education is sending a message to schools: The $131 million in new money for schools, even with its 4.5 percent increase in the weighted pupil unit, is not as rosy as it may appear.

"I, for one, am disappointed they did not help children with the budget presented," State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington said, during a legislative debriefing for the board.

Still, board chairman Kim Burningham urged colleagues to keep their chins up.

"It is a positive thing that 4.5 percent was put into the WPU. It's important that growth was funded. It's important, to some of us anyway, that tuition tax credits were defeated," Burningham said. "We can get really down looking at this myriad of troubles, but, (a), it doesn't do us any good and; (b), there were a lot of positive things."

Schools will absorb $1.9 billion in state funds next year — a 5 percent increase and hefty improvement from recent lean years.

But much of the money is simply keeping pace with rising costs and needs, board member Greg Haws said. "I think I could make a case we're not keeping up with growth; in fact, we're getting behind."

Board members lamented higher education's increased share of money that typically goes to public schools. The higher education shares in $266.7 million — a $140 million increase — that was contained in a legislative a shell game to free up general funds for roads, state associate superintendent Patrick Ogden said.

Lawmakers did not fund graduation testing or math requests because they first want a report on the reading program's outcome, Harrington said.

"That report on k-3 reading is going to look wonderfully well . . . scores are going up dramatically," Harrington said. "But to have a one- or two-year lag (in related program funding) as a result of that is difficult to bear."

Last year, former Gov. Olene Walker pushed a $30 million program to ensure that children read by third grade. Lawmakers agreed to fund $15 million, and require school districts to raise $15 million on their own. Several districts hiked taxes for the local match.

But $2.5 million of the state's investment was one-time money that was not renewed.

"It was very disappointing to me the state didn't maintain their 50 percent of that program," said Barry Newbold, superintendent of Jordan School District, which receives $268,000 of that discontinued sum, or about four reading specialists' worth. "What we're trying to do now is study in detail how the money was spent . . . and the personnel costs necessary to keep those elementary specialists in those schools."

---

E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com