RESOLUTION ON URBAN FINANCE AND EDUCATION

States and cities are facing a variety of fiscal problems resulting from federal budget cuts, the Reagan recession, tax limitations, and other forces. The fiscal crisis of the cities results from deep seated problems and national trends which are beyond the control of the cities and are not necessarily the result of injudicious policy decisions by them.

American city school districts were once the undisputed leaders of educational innovation and guideposts for quality educational services. They served as lighthouse districts that all other school districts strove to follow. That position has deteriorated over time. The nation has changed and American cities have changed along with it. Over the past decades millions of middle-class residents have left cities for the suburbs. Business and industry have spread into suburbs and beyond metropolitan areas as transportation and communication have improved. Left behind in many cities has been a central core of offices, hotels, stores, restaurants and service establishments, and behind this a population characterized by a large proportion of low-income and high-need individuals: the poor, the elderly, the limited English proficient, the unemployed, the poorly educated, and those eligible for public assistance of varying kinds.

Twenty large American city school districts educate almost ten percent of all public elementary and secondary school pupils. Only five large city school districts educate six percent of the national total. Almost one-third of New York State's public school children are in the New York City public schools. Over one-fifth of Illinois' pupils are in Chicago. Baltimore educates almost one-fifth of Maryland's pupils. In California, over one-eighth of all public school pupils go to school in either Los Angeles, San Diego or San Francisco. About the same propor­tion of Texas' enrollment is in Houston, Dallas or San Antonio.

The result has been two important trends in urban school districts:

• city schools have high proportions of children who are very expensive to educate and have higher costs for such things as facilities, security, and support services; and

• cities have a declining revenue base from which to provide adequate educational services. These factors combine to place an extremely heavy burden on urban school districts and threaten the quality of educational services. Reagan Administration economic policies have exacerbated these problems. Federal funds for cities have decreased, recession has added to the rolls of the unemployed and the poor, and federal education support has dropped precipitously.

All public school districts face problems. Many have serious financial problems. However, the urban school districts are experiencing the most severe problems. The magnitude and nature of those problems make this a na­tional issue which must be addressed.

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers support policies aimed at solving these critical problems of urban finance and education through the following steps:

At the federal level, a realistic program of aid to education providing funds for adequate educational programs for the disadvantaged, the handicapped and the limited English proficient, supported by federal program funding for educational research, training, and development.

At the state level, programs for aid which recognize and deal effectively with the special problems of urban school districts, including:

• state aid formulas which use enrollment rather than attendance as the basis for aid allocation;

• state aid formulas which include pupil weightings or categorical aid programs for the disadvantaged, the handicapped, the limited English proficient, the gifted and talented, and other pupils with special needs which realistically reflect the additional costs of educating such children;

• state aid formulas which provide additional aid to school districts which have high concentrations of such special-need children;

• adjustments in state aid allocations formulas which will compensate for the fact that tradi­tional wealth measures, such as property value per pupil, unfairly overstate the fiscal capacity of urban school districts;

• special aid programs or provisions in general aid formulas which recognize the serious financial problems of municipal overburden facing urban school districts; and

• aid for programs which promote excellence and the encouragement of quality educational services, and

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers reaffirms its support for the equality of educational opportunity and support for the concept that the quality of education not be a function of a local school district's fiscal capacity; and