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Education Week, 1/29/19

These states could actually replace their school funding formulas this year.

The vast majority of K-12 dollars today are spent in very outdated, inefficient ways. But replacing a state’s funding formula is both complicated and politically contentious, and past efforts, for a variety of reasons, have fallen flat in many states. This year is different, or so advocates hope. It’s an off-election year, some states, including Kansas, Wisconsin and Idaho, have huge surpluses, and teachers across the nation are demanding state politicians provide higher pay and more school resources. That makes for the right political climate to push through a funding formula, school finance experts say. So what could be some of the hot spots this year as legislatures and governors get down to the business of how to best allocate billions of dollars in K-12 funding? Education Week highlights a few states to watch.

State Education Funding

Education Week, 1/23/19

Why your superintendent doesn’t want to give teachers a raise

Governors in recent years have been pouring money into school districts budgets, yet teachers’ pay has, for the most part, not budged. Driven in part by salary issues, teachers in Los Angeles went on strike, and teachers in Denver decided Wednesday to go on strike. So what’s up? Education Week outlines a few things district superintendents, CFOs, and school board members have said they think about when considering whether or not they should give their teachers a raise, including the dangers of using one-time money, back filling positions that were cut during the recession, reducing class sizes, and pensions.

Pension Costs School Money and Performance

Education Dive, 1/25/19

Does outcome-based funding encourage academic progress or deepen the divide?

As Texas lawmakers consider increasing state education funding, some state education leaders fear a turn to outcome-based funding methods for part of that formula, allocating more money to schools based on 3rd-grade reading test scores and the number of graduating seniors who prove to be college- or career-ready. Top state officials have signaled their support for a plan recommended by a state-appointed school finance panel to spend a portion of the recommended education funding — about $800 million — on incentivizing superintendents to improve 3rd-grade reading scores and success rates of high school seniors. However, many education leaders are concerned such outcomes-based incentives will direct the flow of funds from schools that need it most, creating greater funding inequities between districts, and that it will simply encourage teaching to the tests or attempts to game the system. Texas has never tied funding to school performance before, and despite recommendations, lawmakers have yet to propose a bill in support.

Funding Equity State Education Funding

CRPE, 11/30/18

Funding a nimble system

In this essay, Travis Pillow and Paul Hill explore what it would take to ensure that personalized and weighted funding follows students across multiple learning experiences, and could meet the needs of all students. Information through online portals and navigators who help families select the best options for their children are critical, the authors argue, as are addressing oversight and helping manage the transition from traditional funding models. “Low-income students or students with special needs who receive larger funding allotments under the weighted student funding system would be more likely to have money left over after covering the cost of school enrollment…Parents would have a more versatile mechanism to respond to needs that arise during the course of their children’s education,” write Pillow and Hill.

Alternative Education Models and Funding Mechanisms

The 74 Million, 1/28/19

Supplement not supplant is back: Why education advocates are concerned a wonky new ESSA spending proposal will hurt poor kids

Education advocates say a new Education Department proposal on school spending undermines a key rule that could help ensure equitable spending for low-income students. The wonky “supplement not supplant” rule, included in several reauthorizations of federal K-12 law, including the Every Student Succeeds Act, requires districts to show they’re not using federal Title I grants intended for low-income students when they should be using state and local money instead. Under the Education Department’s proposal, released Friday, districts would have to show their method for allocating funding is “Title I neutral,” meaning the district isn’t explicitly giving less to schools that educate large numbers of low-income children. That flexibility would give districts too much leeway in spending their federal grants, cutting at the heart of legal protections for low-income children, advocates say.

Federal Education Funding Funding Equity

Education Next, 1/24/19

Los Angeles teachers strike a deal, but miss an opportunity

The LAUSD-UTLA deal ignores the growing bite that retirement costs and underfunded pensions are taking out of the dollars earmarked for students and practicing teachers. Stanford’s Crane observes, “One-third of LAUSD’s retirement spending is for unnecessary, duplicative or excessive health insurance subsidies provided to retirees entitled to Medicare or ACA coverage. Terminating those subsidies could provide an immediate $10,000 salary increase for LAUSD teachers.” Yet, despite the ugly math, there are no indications that the LA deal does anything but kick the can on these profound challenges.

Pension Costs School Money and Performance

The Texas Tribune, 1/15/19

Texas House and Senate about $3 billion apart on public education spending

Almost everyone at the Texas Capitol agrees the state should spend more money on public schools, but for House and Senate leaders, how much is enough? Last week, that became a $3 billion question. A day after the Texas House unveiled a proposal to pump more than $7 billion in new state funds into public schools, the Texas Senate answered with a budget that would boost the state’s share of public education spending by about $4.3 billion compared with the previous two-year budget cycle. The two chambers made differing suggestions about how to pay for those reforms, with the Senate favoring a big withdrawal from the state savings account to pay for leftover bills from last session, while the House recommended more modest spending from the state savings account for future expenses.

State Education Funding

Education Dive, 1/18/19

Repairing Puerto Rico’s schools post-Maria will cost $11B, take 7 years

Puerto Rico Education Secretary Julia Keleher told Education Week it will cost $11 billion and take from three years to seven years to bring the U.S. territory’s 856 public schools up to new building codes after they were devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. Keleher said she will try to secure $100 million of unspent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Category B financial assistance, which pays for urgent health and safety work including mold remediation. In a December 2018 news release, FEMA said work on the schools will focus on resiliency and energy efficiency.

Federal Education Funding School Money and Performance

Hechinger Report, 1/21/19

Recessionary cuts in public education restored by 2015-16

In a December 2018 report, the U.S. Department of Education quietly noted an important milestone: spending by state and local governments, on average, was strong enough during the 2015-16 school year to return annual per-student spending to what it had been before 2008-9 recession and even grew above the pre-recession peak. This 2015-16 spending represents a 1 percent real improvement over that previous high point. These national numbers are just averages. Some states spent more than double what other states spent. While many states increased financing for schools, others did not. In a few states, such as Kansas and Oklahoma, education spending remained lower than it was before the recession, after adjusting for inflation. “There is more spread across states in state and local funding than ever before,” wrote Marguerite Roza, the director of the Edunomics Lab, in an e-mail. “While the national averages tell one story, that story may not apply to some states.”

Local Education Funding State Education Funding

Education Week, 1/18/19

California isn’t alone. School funding will be a headache for many states this year.

It looks like how and whether to spend more on K-12 schools this year will dominate this year’s legislative sessions. Many of the governors elected last fall are looking to deliver on promises they made on the campaign trail to provide more funding to schools and boost teacher salaries. More than 29 states still have not restored school funding to pre-recession levels and many districts continue to make dramatic cuts because of other obligations such as pensions and health-care costs. But expanding pre-K, boosting teacher pay, and assuring that new money is spent on the classroom is a complicated and politically arduous task. Education Week outlines a list of states where fights over school funding will be especially politically contentious.

Pension Costs State Education Funding