San Diego, CA
WHEREAS, students in the United States are educated in more than 16,000 individual school districts of many types and sizes; and
WHEREAS, providing a high-quality education to those students requires the efforts of a team of people offering a wide range of services that support and sustain direct instruction in the classroom; and
WHEREAS, there is a nationwide scheme being promoted by a faux grassroots organization called "First Class Education,” supported by such people as Grover Norquist and George Will, the so-called 65 percent solution calls on states to further undermine struggling education systems by enacting legislation mandating that a minimum of 65 percent of spending must be devoted solely to direct instruction, as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), an arm of the Department of Education, without regard to the full range of services that support and sustain that instruction; and
WHEREAS, the so-called 65 percent solution will have a negative impact on funding for items not included in the direct instruction category, including school health and nursing, school libraries, nutrition services, transportation, building maintenance, counseling, security, and professional development for teachers; and
WHEREAS, the 65 percent solution is based on a misguided "one-size-fits-all" calculation that does not, as one writer stated, "include the cost of bringing students to the classroom, maintaining the classroom, keeping the classroom safe or training the classroom teacher;" and
WHEREAS, the so-called 65 percent solution is another untested proposal that does nothing to guarantee greater student achievement or that school districts will adjust their spending in a manner that creates greater efficiency—a stated goal of this initiative:
RESOLVED, that the AFL-CIO and its affiliates
- educate members about the inherent dangers of this and other one-size-fits-all approaches to education staffing and funding; and
- encourage collaboration at the state and local levels to educate communities about the dangers of initiatives like the 65 percent solution approach to education funding and to inform them about other, more workable, proven solutions that enhance student achievement; and
- work with education and community allies to defeat these “65 percent solution” legislative and ballot initiatives and to advocate for every effort that strengthens schools and improves education for all students, including supporting efforts to eliminate wasteful spending in schools.