The survey methodology met the primary test for a political opinion poll – it produced results favorable to the position of those who commissioned it.

The results were enthusiastically announced by the Department because they were decidedly different from the results of 30 public meetings around the state, also sponsored by the Department. People at these meetings, the department admits, favor keeping the current system over the Commissioners proposal to centralize.

It is not.

It is not clear from the news release or the full survey report just who was surveyed, but it is very clear that the responses were not random. A national data service provided 4,000 names and addresses. These people were simply mailed a survey form and invited to respond. Only 301 did.

So the survey results consist of responses from people who decided to respond. This is called a “self-selection” response , and whether the invitation list was randomly selected or not, the responses are motivated, not random. These 301 are no more statistically representative of any larger group than are the 882 people who showed up at public meetings to which everyone was invited.

There are other sampling issues with this survey. In an attempt to make the survey a random survey of households, the survey architects required the national data service that drew the sample to include no more than one person from each household in the final sample. That gives each household an equal chance of selection.

The problem is that households do not have opinions. Individuals have opinions, and within households, these opinions sometimes vary. And that means that not everyone in the population (or on the voter lists) had an equal chance of being selected.

It also means the sample over-represents people who live in one-person households (who are never thrown out, if selected) and under represents people in households with more than one person (who will be thrown out if someone else in their household has already been selected).

In and of itself, these faults do not mean the data gathered is useless. It just means it cannot be described as representative of anything other than the opinions of 301 people who decided to share their views on school governance.

But there are other factors that call even that use of the data into question.

Those surveyed were provided “information” the report claims made them “more knowledgeable” than the general public.

The information was prepared by the Department whose Commissioner has taken a position on the issue being surveyed. The information included graphic representation of the Commissioner’s proposal and of the current school governance system. These charts were plainly designed to make the current system appear complex and unwieldy and the Commissioner’s proposal simple and streamlined.

The narrative provided also included patently biased statements describing the current system as producing “differing priorities” of school boards and “very different outcomes for the students” while suggesting that under the proposed system “policy direction is generally clearer.”

This information does not make the respondents any more knowledgeable about anything other than Commissioner Cate’s point of view. Saying it does is akin to saying that juries would bring better verdicts if they retired to decide the case immediately after hearing the prosecution’s opening statement.

The respondents might have been provided the perspective of the supporters of the current system who say its complexity is a function of its deep democratic design, while the streamlined look of the Commissioner’s proposal reflects the administrative power of a centralized bureaucracy. That point of view was not provided.

Finally, the report wrongly discounts school board members and school employees who responded to the survey, saying they are less favorable than others to Cate’s proposal because they have a “vested interest” in the current system. But nothing in the survey provides any basis whatsoever for describing the motive of any respondents.
It is plausible that this group has a lower opinion of Cate’s proposal than other respondents only because they are better informed. It is also plausible that they responded at a higher rate than did others in the sample because as elected officials and school employees they have an official and professional duty to care about education that others in the general public do not have.

This survey is nothing but a classic “push poll” designed to influence voter opinion, not to measure it. It influences opinion directly by giving respondents one-sided information before they answer the survey questions, and indirectly by misrepresenting the results as scientifically representative of the point of view of the general public. This is not the kind of service we need from the Vermont Department of Education.

“No, not us,” said the Nebraska Supreme Court when asked by rural students, parents, and school districts if Nebraska’s miserly school funding system does enough to educate her youth.

The Nebraska Constitution requires “free instruction in the common schools” of the state. The plaintiffs wanted to know if those words have any meaning in a court of law, or are they just so much constitutional blather?

The Court said the meaning of those words is a “political question” for the legislature and the governor, not the courts, to decide. The court found for blather.

Political question? Don’t kid yourself. Courts decide the questions they want to decide. The ones they don’t want to decide they label “political.”

While it is true that courts should not legislate, it is also true that words have meaning, and it is the Court’s duty to interpret their meaning, especially when those words are part of the Constitution.

But according to the Nebraska Supreme Court, the words “free instruction in the common schools of this state” can mean a coloring book, a crayon, and a tree stump for a desk if the politicians say so.

Then the judges suggested the plaintiffs were merely angry and sullen sinners who could go to hell for daring to ask these Wizards of Oz to come out from behind their curtain and perform their public duty to interpret the Nebraska Constitution.

Mind you, the Supreme Courts in over a dozen states have had no trouble ruling that their state’s school funding system is inadequate without ducking behind the “political question” curtain for cover.

Average salary for a full-time teacher in rural Nebraska schools is eighth lowest in the nation for rural teachers and far below the average salary of non-rural Nebraska teachers. Teacher turnover rate in rural Nebraska is about 12 percent and only 28 percent of teachers have a master’s degree, compared to 44 percent nationwide and 48 percent in non-rural Nebraska. Nearly one-third of Nebraska’s rural teachers are assigned to teach a course they are not prepared to teach.

The state provides only 34 percent of the funding for schools, a level of state aid that is tragically low and woefully inadequate. Only Illinois, Nevada, and South Dakota provide less.

The plaintiffs claim the constitutional mandate to educate does not apply only to students in large, easily accessible, and prosperous places. It applies to those in remote, challenging locations, living in poverty, suffering disabling conditions, and learning English.

And to those who live in a school district where voters are unwilling or unable to override state imposed levy lids.

In ducking the issue, the Nebraska Court relied on six standards used by the U.S. Supreme Court to determine if an issue is a political question courts should not decide. Interestingly, the federal court wrote these standards in a case addressing one of the most political of all controversies – the reapportionment of legislative districts under the “one person, one vote” principle. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the reapportionment issue could not be considered a political question under any of the six standards. So it decided the case in favor of “one person, one vote.” As a result, legislative districts in all states are redrawn after each Census to conform to “one person, one vote.”

But the Nebraska Court said the adequacy of the school funding system is a political question on the basis of no fewerthan five of the six federal court standards.

First, the court said that since the Constitution assigns the Legislature to pass school funding laws, the matter has been committed exclusively to the Legislature. Second, the court said there are no Constitutional standards to guide the court if it did take up the question of whether the funding is adequate, and that by declining to adopt constitutional amendments that would have clarified standards, the people of Nebraska have said they don’t want any. Third, the Court found that it could not decide whether the Nebraska funding system is adequate without “resolving broad and complicated policy decisions or balancing competing political interests.” Fourth, the court moped that it could not decide the issue “without expressing lack of the respect” due to the legislature and the governor. Finally, the judges said they could not decide the issue because they could not resolve it immediately and any ruling they made would be difficult to enforce.

With excuses like these for ducking a tough issue, “one person, one vote” would have been a horse of a different color in Oz.

The reality is that applying these tests is just an exercise in rationalization. All that matters is whether or not the court wants to address thorny constitutional issues that have unmistakable and inconvenient political content.
And the Nebraska Court said, “No, not us.”

To justify their pitiful withdrawal, the Court went on a rant about courts “that have been bogged down in the legal quicksand of continuous litigation” in other school funding cases. Why, the recent Arkansas case was in litigation for ten years. The Arkansas Court ruled for the plaintiffs, then gave the legislature time to fix the system, then had to step back into action when the legislature balked. In Kansas the court not only kept its hand in the case but actually ordered additional appropriations and threatened to close schools if the legislature did not respond.
And Lordy, in New Jersey, the Nebraska court moaned, litigation has been boiling for over 30 years and three separate school funding laws have been ruled unconstitutional.

True. But it is also true that New Jersey now has the best preschool program in the nation, the achievement gap between African American and White students at fourth grade has been cut in half, and the state ranks first in graduation rates for poor and minority students. Significantly, New Jersey is the only state where the funding gap between the state’s poorest and wealthiest schools has been nearly eliminated.

These achievements and those in Arkansas, Kansas, and many other states took time and effort because every branch of government was doing its job. On issues as difficult and controversial as school funding systems, it takes a lot of work to get it right. And the courts have played a pivotal role in all these states interpreting and applying Constitutional language to the political remedies forged in the legislature.

It’s not supposed to be quick and easy. These protracted cases are not shameful episodes, but heroic odysseys.

But in Nebraska, it’s “No, not us.”

Sadly, while the Nebraska judges were determined not to show disrespect to the legislature or the governor, they did not hesitate to take a thinly veiled cheap shot at the rural plaintiffs who brought the school funding lawsuit.
Referring to school funding litigation that has worn on for years with tenacious plaintiffs pitted against recalcitrant state governments, the Nebraska Supreme Court soberly announced that “we refuse to wade into that Stygian swamp.”

Stygian swamp?

That’s the fifth circle of Hell in Dante’s 14th Century epic poem, the Inferno. In the Stygian swamp, the angry and the sullen are condemned to bicker among themselves forever in muddy and acrid waters. The Nebraska Court relishes the image. While other courts wade among their litigious sinners searching the muddy waters for legal remedies to difficult questions, the Nebraska judges float nobly by on the good ship “Political Question,” ignoring the angry and sullen sinners begging them to do their duty.

It might be that the judges were confident that anyone with a Nebraska public school education would not get the reference or take the offense. Let’s hope the blow doesn’t go that low.

But if Dante got it right, the learned judges may one day wish they had waded into that Stygian swamp. Because in Dante’s Inferno, beyond the Stygian swamp and the River Styx, lies Satan’s inner sanctuary and the final four circles of Hell.

These final four destinations are not for the passive sinners whose inability to control their petty vices has placed them for eternity in the first five, kinder and gentler circles.

No, the inner four circles are for those who sin with malice. There are the heretics, cast in flaming tombs, the murderers immersed in boiling blood, the panderers and seducers and flatterers, buried in excrement, the corrupt politicians in boiling pitch, the hypocrites, thieves and frauds.

Finally, in the innermost ninth circle of Hell, within sight of Satan himself and buried under sheets of ice, are those whose sin is greatest -- betrayal. And among them, in this most punishing destiny, where ice, not fire, supplies endless agony, are those who have betrayed their public duties.

“No, not us,” was all the Nebraska Supreme Court could say when asked to decide whether the Constitution’s mandate to educate children has legal meaning that the poor and the disadvantaged can take to court for a redress of their grievances.

“No, not us. No political questions, please.”

Laws in many states, however, provide local communities a way around the limitations of taxing or spending caps through the “override” process. In such cases, local voters can choose to spend more than the law permits, or tax themselves at a rate higher than the state tax lid, if 50% or more of voters approve the override.

But some states require a so-called supermajority, in which the override depends on 60% of voters, sometimes even higher margins, to approve the override. This requirement compounds the problems that poor communities face in raising revenues for their schools.

The Problem of Supermajorities

Supermajority overrides in effect make some people’s vote worth more than others. They create “premium” voters and “discount” voters. Say for example, that 60% approval is required to override a lid. That means six votes are needed to achieve the same effect that five would have in a simple majority election. The votes of those who support the override are effectively discounted by one-sixth, or about 17%. On the other hand, the votes of those who oppose the override are inflated by one-fourth—four votes have the same power as five would have in a simple majority election, a 25% premium.

The issue of supermajorities was debated by the delegates to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, which recognized the value of requiring supermajorities where rare and extremely grave decisions lay in the balance—impeachment of the president, approval of treaties, overriding a presidential veto, amending the Constitution.

But on matters of the ordinary enactment of legislation, and on matters involving the votes of citizens rather than elected representatives, the delegates listened to James Madison’s wise counsel against supermajorities. Later, in urging voters in the 13 states to adopt the Constitution, Madison wrote that with supermajorities, “the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority." And he cautioned, a privileged minority of premium voters would be able to “screen themselves from equitable sacrifices” and “extort unreasonable indulgences."

You don’t have to look very deep into the property tax protest movement to imagine those motives.

Share your reactions to this commentary, or your experiences with supermajority requirements, here on Rural Matters by clicking the "comment" button below and following the simple instructions.

Our school has teacher retention problems due to many things, including lack of housing near the school. We are thinking about buying a house that we could rent out to new teachers and are wondering if this has been tried before and if it was successful.

If you have knowledge of innovative ways in which rural communities have tried to address housing shortages for new teachers, please share your information here on Rural Matters by clicking "Comment" below and following the instructions. Your information will be included in the comment section of this post.

If you prefer, you can send your information as an email directly to the editor and it will be passed along to the South Carolina school.

We'll keep this post and any comments on Rural Matters, of course, and will feature unusual or particularly interesting ideas on the main page of the blog.

For more background on the problem of housing for rural teachers and some solutions that schools have tried historically, continue reading...

Housing shortages for teachers are not a new problem. Historically, some rural schools provided a house of some kind. The arrangement was common enough to have a name: "teacherage" (an apparent appropriation of the term "parsonage," the house often provided the minister by the church). Teacherages were often provided as part of the salary package or rented for a nominal charge.

In Kansas, several rural communities are providing free land to families willing to build a house on the lot. These free land offers are not designed specifically for new teachers, but the idea could be adapted. The program, Kansas Free Land, is described in the April 2007 Rural Policy Matters and you can read more about it at the Kansas Free Land website.

In some communities, students (often in vocational programs or vocational agriculture classes) have built homes and sold them. Sometimes such houses are built as modular units; other times they are built on site. It can be a great learning experience that involves students from several classes and curricula. The houses can stress energy efficiency, feature solar heating/cooling systems, showcase design features, provide floorplan flexibility, and incorporate local materials or architectural styles. Sometimes local artisans will join the effort and contribute things like specialized stone masonry work, decorative wood carving, or fiber art. These kinds of student projects build the community (and sometimes the school's enrollment) and can be very successful, but they require a lot of work, planning, coordination, and leadership.

Houses that are built--or bought--for (or with) new teachers, can be sold to the teacher with a "buy back" or "first refusal" option for the school.

Some schools don't own the housing they make available to teachers, but they work with local residents to find available housing, something brand new teachers may have a hard time doing. Because local rural people are likely to know other residents who own property that is not in use or is unoccupied (information that is unavailable to new or prospective residents, including teachers), the school can go a long way toward helping new teachers find a home and feel welcomed into the community. Sometimes these efforts require a local committee or team to help take pressure off administration and broaden the reach and community's involvement. The team approach also has the advantage of getting more local residents invested in making new teachers feel welcome.