UL: the myth of "adequate education funding"

[KBCraig]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Charlie+Arlinghaus%3a+The+need+to+define+educational+adequacy+is+a+myth&articleId=0e0dc2dd-b09b-4d64-a58b-908a737f9566

Charlie Arlinghaus: The need to define educational adequacy is a myth

By CHARLES M. ARLINGHAUS

OBSERVERS seeking to rush the Legislature to fix education funding by "defining adequacy" are approaching the issue backwards and boxing themselves into a corner. Contrary to popular mythology, the court has not demanded that legislators define the various components required to provide children an adequate education.

In fact, the court mandate is to define a base cost for the state, rather than local government, to pay. In the recent Londonderry decision, the court clarified the issue by requiring the political branches to define "constitutional adequacy" in a way that will "allow for an objective determination of costs. Whatever the state identifies as comprising constitutional adequacy it must pay for. None of that financial obligation can be shifted to local school districts, regardless of their relative wealth or need."

What the court requires, then, is a statement of the state's "financial obligation" under the radical new financial arrangement required only by the Supreme Court.

In every state except Hawaii (which has one big school district), schools are funded first by local towns or counties. Naturally, some communities have more resources than others. State aid is then poured on top to fill in some of the holes this system creates. In Massachusetts, for example, Lawrence receives a great deal of aid and Wellesley receives very little.

In recent discussion, this approach has been called "targeted aid" and was the consensus approach of the leaders of both parties, both houses of the Legislature, and the governor last session.

However, the court has forbidden the approach that is the consensus of both political parties and the method used in 49 states. The justices' radical approach is that the state must provide the first dollar of funding in every town up to "constitutional adequacy."

State funding must be the same in the richest towns and the poorest towns "regardless of their relative wealth or need." In any other state program, we would regard this approach as foolish.

Think of local education spending as a bar graph with peaks and valleys for each town. Under the traditional approach, state aid is poured in to fill in the valleys. Under the court's radical new approach, state aid is first-dollar aid. It is a brick wall built underneath the peaks and valleys. It doesn't reduce the valleys, it just makes them worse.

To allow state education aid to address the different needs of different towns, some legislators want a constitutional amendment to reverse the worst parts of the Claremont and Londonderry decisions. Conservatives want a broad amendment while the governor and some other Democrats prefer a more narrow amendment.

A third group is comfortable with the court's radical new approach and opposes any amendment of any kind.

The next step in the process is most certainly not defining the state's financial obligation. How one defines the court-mandated "constitutionally adequate financial obligation" depends entirely on whether you intend to follow the court's brick wall approach or the targeted approach.

For example, last year the governor came up with a pretty good mechanism for determining financial obligation based on need. That mechanism would make a good starting point for a consensus plan, but it may not be put into place under the court's current rulings. If you like that approach, an amendment of at least some sort is required. If you like the court decision, that approach is forbidden.

A decision on how to define the state's financial obligation, what some politicians refer to as "adequacy," is dependent on the limits under which the Legislature will operate. Without the court-mandated restriction, virtually every politician would begin with considerations of "relative wealth and need" just as they do for every other program in the state budget.

In the past, I've characterized the Legislature's choices as "spend or amend" because without an amendment, the state's financial obligation will have to be defined to include another $800 million or so of spending and the taxes to pay for that spending.

Defining the state's "adequate" financial obligation isn't preliminary to an education funding plan, it is the funding plan. But before that debate can even begin, the Legislature must decide whether it will consider relative wealth and need.

[mvpel]

Considering relative wealth and need smacks (with a two-by-four) of socialism.

They should just say "$5,000 a head from the state" - bam, done.  If you can't manage to educate a kid "adquately" on $5,000 a year, you're doing something seriously wrong.

[Quantrill]

If you can't manage to educate a kid "adquately" on $5,000 a year, you're doing something seriously wrong.

Amen to that!

[KBCraig]

They should just say "$5,000 a head from the state" - bam, done.

Make it $5 (or less), and I'd agree.

Homeschoolers prove that even $5,000 per year is an outrageous amount for an "adequate" education. Parent/teachers who really go all out on textbooks, museum admissions, etc., usually don't spend more than a grand a year for a first-rate education.

Kevin

[Tyler Stearns]

Considering relative wealth and need smacks (with a two-by-four) of socialism.

They should just say "$5,000 a head from the state" - bam, done.  If you can't manage to educate a kid "adquately" on $5,000 a year, you're doing something seriously wrong.

most schools in NH are spending over 10K per student already so I think we have some work to do.

[CNHT]

Considering relative wealth and need smacks (with a two-by-four) of socialism.

They should just say "$5,000 a head from the state" - bam, done.  If you can't manage to educate a kid "adquately" on $5,000 a year, you're doing something seriously wrong.

most schools in NH are spending over 10K per student already so I think we have some work to do.

The state average is $9,000+ and most are spending well above that...which is why this point needs to be driven home.
Imagine what a homeschooler could do with that money???

http://www.cnht.org/pdf/edu_testimony.pdf

[KurtDaBear]

The size of a school has a stronger correlation to quality of education than spending per student.  The larger the school, the worse (and more expensive) the education.  (That's just a personal observation based on more than a decade as a school reporter and more than two decades as a parent.)

[CNHT]

The size of a school has a stronger correlation to quality of education than spending per student.  The larger the school, the worse (and more expensive) the education.  (That's just a personal observation based on more than a decade as a school reporter and more than two decades as a parent.)

I concur...where I worked, they eliminated the smaller schools so they could have better central control.
When we had the smaller schools, it was more neighborhood controlled and we did good things for the kids without the dog and pony shows from the federal mandates...

Of course, those were the Reagan years, and my students really learned, ALL of them, because I could actually TEACH!

[anthonybpugh]

average cost of education a kid is $9000?  Lets see.  Average class size in the US is 23 http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/eiip/eiipid21.asp

$9,000 x 23 = $207,000  for nine months out of the year. 

[eques]

They should just say "$5,000 a head from the state" - bam, done.

Make it $5 (or less), and I'd agree.

Homeschoolers prove that even $5,000 per year is an outrageous amount for an "adequate" education. Parent/teachers who really go all out on textbooks, museum admissions, etc., usually don't spend more than a grand a year for a first-rate education.

Kevin

I would imagine that these per-capita spending estimates include teacher and administrative salaries as well as building maintenance costs, etc.

If they don't--holy shit!

In any case, to make a fair comparison, you need to factor those things in somehow.  Obviously, educating your children within your own home makes very efficient use of resources you're already paying for, and the "teacher's salary" might be reflected in the cost of tutors, if any.  Perhaps income not earned due to one parent staying home might be added in as well, but that assumes that said parent would be working during school hours and/or isn't working night shifts or earning income some other way.

Whatever the case, the absolute bare minimums may add up to (say) $5,000 per year per child for homeschooling, but that does not immediately translate into $5,000 per child per year in a state school as economies of scale must be taken into account.

[error]

Most of that money, of course, is going to the armies of "administrators" in the schools who do no teaching and whose only purpose is to dope up children, ruin their lives and of course fill out all the reams and reams of federal paperwork which come along with the trifle of federal education money.

NH would do better to get rid of this deadwood and tell the federal government to shove the money right up their ass.

[CNHT]

Most of that money, of course, is going to the armies of "administrators" in the schools who do no teaching and whose only purpose is to dope up children, ruin their lives and of course fill out all the reams and reams of federal paperwork which come along with the trifle of federal education money.

NH would do better to get rid of this deadwood and tell the federal government to shove the money right up their ass.

<chuckling>

Yes an I said $9,000+ was the 'state average' but it's technically $9,407  (I knew I had just posted it in an article on one taxpayer website...)
There may be a few as low as $5,000 and some even lower, but those may be towns with 50 kids who tuition them to a bigger group...

Mostly the towns who fund their own schools are up in the teens and even $20K range...that is what brings the avg up to $9,407.

I say that ought to be PLENTY!

[Quantrill]

With all the PORCs in NH and the chldren that accompany them, how long before "we" prove that kids educated outside the NH public fool system are smarter and can be taught cheaper than kids in public schools?

[Otosan]

I am sure if everyone paid "their fair share" that kids would have an "adequate education fund".

All we have to do now is define fair share and adequate education fund.  ???

[eques]

What does "fair share" mean for me?  I don't have children.