<p>Impoverished schools are slashing programs, letting classroom
sizes grow and teacher counts shrink. Some of them are just
closing down.
</p>
<p>By RICHARD LACAYO--With reporting by D. Blake Hallanan/San
Francisco and Leslie Whitaker/Chicago
</p>
<p> In Kalkaska, Michigan, the students know all about
cramming. They just tried to cram a year into seven months.
Their spring term bumped to a halt last week when local school
authorities, glumly eyeing a $1.5 million shortfall in their
$8.2 million budget, chose to declare summer vacation in March.
All through a cold winter, Matt Johnston had trudged to a 7:30
a.m. calculus class he hoped would earn him advanced-placement
credit at college next year. Though teachers rushed through
their lesson plans as the premature vacation neared, Johnston
still wonders whether he should have stayed in bed. "The
[nationwide calculus] test is in May," he complains, "but no
one is prepared to take it."
</p>
<p> After approving a hike in local property tax rates in
1989, Kalkaska voters, about a fourth of them retirees living
on fixed incomes, have three times in the past year turned down
requests for additional increases--most recently by a 2-to-1
ratio. Some of them want officials of their rural district to
follow the example of other cash-strapped schools and pare
programs. "No way" is the reply from district leaders, who four
years ago temporarily cut art, music, field trips and some
athletic programs, then shortened the school day by an hour. "It
was devastating," says Kalkaska High principal Jerry Judge.
"This was a much better year."
</p>
<p> What there was of it, at least. The predicament of
Kalkaska's schools is not unusual, but their decision to shut
down rather than slim down is. Making do has become the working
philosophy of Amer ican education. After a long recession and
an even longer era of citizen tax revolts, schools around the
country are reold textbooks, letting ceiling plaster crumble,
cutting out art and sports programs or closing down for days at
a time. All the while, parents and educators are wondering which
cuts are tolerable, which fatal. Is it O.K. to use outdated
history books? How badly outdated? What if there aren't even
enough books to provide each student with a copy to take home
at night?
</p>
<p> This spring, the Clinton Administration will send Congress
its major school legislation, which will include funds for
Chapter 1, the program targeted at disadvantaged schools. But
no one expects Washington to have much real impact on the school
budget crisis. Federal dollars account for just 6% of public
elementary and secondary education spending in the U.S.; local
property taxes and state aid pay most of the bills.
</p>
<p> The system produces lustrous mini-campuses in the most
fortunate suburbs, scuffed and gloomy warehouses in the ghettos
and maximum insecurity almost everywhere. Poorer districts are
so desperate that 41 states have faced lawsuits challenging the
statewide school finance formula, all with the goal of getting
courts to compel legislatures to adopt a more equitable sharing
of tax revenues. Under court pressure, Kentucky has developed
a package of taxes to help fund education. In May Texas voters
will be asked to approve a redistribution of property taxes.
</p>
<p> In Illinois, where litigation is pending, one low-income
district committed symbolic suicide last week. Arguing that it
could never raise enough money from property taxes, the school
board of North Chicago, 40 miles north of the city, voted simply
to dissolve the district and shut down its eight schools. If
the board's drastic plan is approved by county education
officials, North Chicago's 4,300 students will be dispersed to
schools in more prosperous surrounding communities--a move the
neighboring towns are sure to resist.
</p>
<p> While the school board may have been trying to dramatize
its plight, the problems are all too real. Though the North
Chicago school district has one of the state's highest tax rates--$7.33 per $100 of assessed value--property assessments are
so low that last year the district raised just $1,638 per
student. By comparison, nearby Lake Forest, with a tax rate of
only $1.32 per $100, collects $14,143 per student.
</p>
<p> For struggling schools unwilling to contemplate
self-extinction, slow starvation is the common alternative. The
first targets to trim are often the precious "frills," the arts
programs, foreign languages, after-school athletics that provide
students with the lessons a traditional classroom cannot. Yet
last fall all 72 public high schools in Chicago were nearly
forced to eliminate sports altogether because of a $1.2 million
budget shortfall. Only last-minute contributions from
corporations such as Footlocker, Illinois Bell and Nike and such
individual donations as $100,000 from Michael Jordan saved
athletics for the year. In many states, the only way to earn a
place on the varsity squad is not to be the fastest or the
strongest but to be able to afford as much as a couple of
hundred dollars to cover "pay for play" fees, transportation
charges or equipment costs.
</p>
<p> Budget crises can bring even more painful choices. With
the current term heading into its last months, the supply
cupboard is almost bare at Hayward High School, a 1,565-student
school just southeast of Oakland, California. "We are down to
worrying about how much paper we use in a day," says English
teacher Carolyn Aune. That's not the only reason why she makes
fewer writing assignments lately. She already has too much work
to correct, with 170 students in her five classes, 45 more than
last year, an increase caused by rising enrollment and staff
cuts. And because of overstuffed classrooms, there is limited
hands-on participation in Hayward's chemistry labs--too many
safety concerns. Those have to be taken more seriously now that
budget cuts have eliminated the school nurse. The librarian is
also gone this year. So are seven after-school sports. "I'm
really glad I'm graduating this year because so many things are
being cut," says Mary Basurtf, a senior. "I feel sorry for the
freshmen."
</p>
<p> Hayward's troubles are an outgrowth of the statewide
crisis in California's threadbare school system, which was among
the nation's best. A lengthy economic slump has compounded
problems created by the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, which
slashed property taxes and sharply reduced school revenues.
Between 1987 and 1992, unrestricted state funding for the 34
schools of the racially mixed Hayward district declined from $90
million to $65 million, even as the student population climbed
from 18,000 to 21,125.
</p>
<p> In those same years, California has seen an influx of
immigrants, a rise in the number of kids with learning and
behavioral problems, more latchkey children whose parents are
working and hungry kids whose parents are not. "Schools are
expected to provide more social services, more counseling, more
psychological and nursing services," says Dan Moirao,
superintendent of the Hayward Unified School District. "But
because of low funding, we have difficulty just providing the
basic teacher in front of the classroom with a textbook."
</p>
<p> Simple numbers, hard consequences--how does a school
decide what stays, what goes? In the past two years, the Hayward
district canceled a program that provided 34 specially trained
teachers to help students who have reading problems. But it held
on to six counselors, in part because of an outcry from parents
who feared their children would not have guidance to make
judgments about college and careers. Even six seemed too few to
students puzzling over their prospects. "We have a million
decisions to make, and there's no one here to talk to,"
complains Jared Mariconi, a senior. Mary Ann O'Toole, sole
counselor at Hayward High, sees even more serious problems:
"We've had two student deaths this year, and we don't even have
time to talk to the kids."
</p>
<p> Double duty for teachers and admin istrators is one way of
making do. At Eisenhower Junior High in Darien, Illinois--which is going through its sixth year of shrinking budgets--the principal, Joseph Pedersen, has been known to cut the grass
and replace the tile floor in the gym. He also covers one of the
three cafeteria periods every day and does occasional service as
a substitute teacher. On weekends he writes grant proposals,
attempting to get state and private funds for programs he
cannot otherwise afford. For good measure, he coaches the
wrestling team from mid-November through the end of March. "It's
a long season," he concedes.
</p>
<p> At Eisenhower the student council has been enlisted as a
cash cow, generating $1,500 a month in profit from its "market
day," which allows fee-paying customers to buy food in bulk
through the school. Through an agreement with the local parks
authority, new public tennis courts are located on Eisenhower's
grounds, where students can easily use them. Public money will
pay for their upkeep. Parks officials are also considering a
request from Pedersen to donate $5,000 for the school to buy
eight computers. In return, Eisenhower would offer computer
classes to the general public for a small fee that would cover
teacher costs.
</p>
<p> When Eisenhower isn't scrambling for pennies, it's
pinching them. Rather than replace 20 aging microscopes, the
school is investigating the purchase of a TV camera and monitor
system that could display to an entire class the images seen
through a single new microscope. In the home economics classes--where half the enrollees are boys--gas stoves have replaced
the old electric ones, to take advantage of a local gas
company's offer to give the school three stoves free if it
purchased one. The district already squeezes out a 20% saving
by stocking up on gas in the summer, when prices are lower, then
storing the gas in Arkansas until it is needed.
</p>
<p> Michigan school officials are wondering whether the
Kalkaska schools should not have been pursuing more of the same
kind of economy measures. Governor John Engler has appointed a
five-member panel to meet with school officials about the
possibility of reopening. State auditors arrived last week to
look over the district's books. But the school board's decision
to force a showdown over funding has won strong support in
neighboring districts. Some of them observed a moment of silence
in classes last week on the day Kalkaska schools shut their
doors. In the deserted halls of Kalkaska High, that moment may
