'More control over tuition fees at the school'
Leiden Marije van den Berg mapped out the financing of her daughter's primary school. “A school is a community. That's where the important choices have to be made. ”
Image: Angeliek de Jonge
Sometimes it is better not to know exactly what you are getting into in advance. Take something as basic as financing a primary school. How much money is coming in, where is it coming from and where is it going? Simple questions, you think.
Marije van den Berg wondered about her daughter's school. De Lucas van Leyden, a primary school in Leiden with about 450 students. After a conversation with the director, she set to work together with fellow sleuth Pieter Buisman. The search for the answer, with many evening hours of volunteering, eventually took two years until the publication last fall. There will be one on Wednesday evening, May 15 evening in Pakhuis De Zwijger, with the motto: a good conversation about control over money in education.
“We initially started at the school itself. But that's a dry sponge, you have to look further. So we soon flowed off the schoolyard, ”says Van den Berg. The schedule grew by the week and ended in a monster drum, a jumble of dozens of arrows. In addition to the lump sum, the government grant that school boards receive per student from the Ministry of Education, there is a spaghetti of money flows. Target subsidies, educational disadvantages, performance box, appropriate education and so on.
All those side paths and side streams make it very unclear. The image of that spaghetti is very powerful.
“The lump sum itself is quite clear. It is just a lot of money that goes from OCW to the school board and then to the individual schools. But all those side paths and side streams make it very unclear. The image of that spaghetti is very powerful. An inconvenient truth that you can no longer ignore. ”
With the insight came new questions. Who sends all those cash flows? And where does the say lie? “Every time a flow of money arises or diverts, a choice has been made. Who made those choices? With what knowledge? And who supervised that? "
Thought exercise
Sometimes a thought exercise helps: let go of everything and start over with a blank sheet. “Would you think of the current system if you started from scratch? I do not think so. I think you would then make other choices, ”says Van den Berg.
Marie van den Berg
Her daughter was in group 2016 at the end of 7 when the investigation started. What does a group actually need for good education? A budget was drawn up together with the students. A building, a teacher and extra support, an IWB and other learning materials, energy, cleaning. Fairly bright.
The path of education money is more cloudy. Of every euro in government grant that the Ministry of Education provides on average per student, sixty cents ends up at the Lucas van Leyden school, Van den Berg and associates have calculated. Part of it goes to extracurricular matters at the umbrella board, such as administration, the purchase of printers or cleaning. Including contributions from parents, municipality and other sources, 4700 euros per student ends up at the school. Of this amount, about 3800 euros goes to personnel costs. Of that money, 500 euros goes to management, 400 euros to support staff and the rest to teachers.
“All cash flows are accounted for in a very correct way. Down to the penny, almost with an extreme frumpiness. That is not the point, ”says Van den Berg. Only: do we know why the money is distributed in this way? And whether that is the best, most efficient way? “I consider myself a layman with enormous curiosity. I see the Ministry of Education calculating how much money is due to a school. This then goes to the school board in the lump sum. And sometimes new calculations are made there, with what they call allocation models, in order to divide the money between the schools in a different way. ”
All cash flows are accounted for in a very correct way. Only: do we know why the money is distributed in this way? And whether that is the best, most efficient way?
There can be all kinds of reasons for this: keeping a small school open, a school that has a parent and more expensive team of teachers, extra facilities for an educational concept or support for special needs students. Fine, says Van den Berg: solidarity is a great asset. “But often little or no explanation is given by a board. Yes, and it is also a complicated matter, it also gives me a stomach ache. But the question is: do you make those choices openly or not? Can you explain why you do what you do? That's the good conversation about money. There is still a lot of room for improvement. Currently, participation councils are regularly dismissed when they ask 'how things are'. Too technical, they are told. Sorry, but then you are finished as a school board. ”
Lucas van Leyden, like 60 percent of all primary schools, is part of a board with several schools. At board level, the lines are set and important decisions are made before the money reaches the school. A representation of staff and parents discuss this via the joint participation council, but so far this has been limited to advice without obligation. That will change in the coming years, when participation councils will have the right of consent on the main lines of the budget. The last word has not yet been said about the question of what exactly those main points are.
“As a member of the mr or gmr you can look at such a budget and ask yourself: what is the relationship with those wonderful ambitions that we talk to each other in policy terms? Something as practical as: it would be nice if we had a little more music education at school. Well, what does that cost per year? Do the math. ”
Community
And sometimes it is good to just stand in the schoolyard and look around. Then you see: primary school is a community. “That's where it happens, that's where the pupils meet, the parents are on the square, the teachers are there to teach. That is where the important choices have to be made: in the community called school. ”
'The cautious conclusion is that about a third to half of (our?) Tuition money has been decided long and widely before it is at school,' Van den Berg concludes on the website Money flows through the school. Therefore, control should be shifted and the money distributed differently. From the bottom instead of the top. Which does not mean the end for umbrella organizations, she emphasizes.
Solidarity can also only be organized in collectivity. The question is: where does this collectivity help and when not?
“Solidarity can only be organized in collectivity. The question is: where does this collectivity help and when not? If you say: we have 26 schools here and we have put a dome above them to arrange the purchase of the printers. Fine. But how much higher school policy do you need? And should the school leaders be employed by that service office? Because the fact that school leaders and teachers are employed by the school board makes it more difficult to express an opposing view. " And putting it into perspective: “This is not something that you can arrange in a late afternoon. I sketch an ideal world, you have to go somewhere. ”
A similar sound has been heard in politics for a while, through fellow Leidener and D66 MP Paul van Meenen. He says he wants to come up with a private member's bill this year to shift education funding to schools. That was not a one-two punch, says Van den Berg. “This is a typical example of different people coming up with the same idea in different places. Let's be honest: that idea isn't that original. ”
