Everyone is pleading these days to provide more “wrap-around services” to students in need. I have no problem as to the need. But I do have a big problem with the abounding fuzzy thinking about how these services are to be paid. They should under no circumstances be paid for from revenue collected for education, meaning from either the State Foundation Grant or the local education property tax.
If we relent to the crushing concern about the intensity of the need, and start to pay for these services out of the school’s operating funds, we will simply end-up unintentionally shifting this burden to the Foundation Grant. That’s how this big squeeze plays-out among State budget-makers. From their perspective, that means that they can cut-back on the existing State allocations for such things as child health care, drug abuse intervention, child protective services, job retraining, etc., because these things can now partly be provided from the Education Foundation Grant. The Foundation Grant is already woefully inadequate for distressed areas, and this will only compound that problem.
To the extent that we can stretch the guidelines for providing universal free lunches, and can obtain improved dental and health care from other sources, I’m all for that. But we should never raid the Foundation Grant to amplify those efforts. Yes, if we need to use Foundation Grant money to install a washer and dryer in the shower rooms, for kids who come to school in soiled clothes, I can live with that. That’s a minor, but justifiable expense. But, to try to address the full array of family and household needs which stem from poverty, like water, heat, electricity, and food, from the Foundation Grant, I can’t live with that. Somewhere, you have to draw a permanent line and add cement to the sand.