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Trends in the News

READ AFTON'S "TRENDS IN EDUCATION FINANCE"

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Education Week, 3/30/18

Teacher Pay: How salaries, pensions, and benefits work in schools

Teachers are paid less than comparable workers with similar education levels, an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data shows. Since 1996, teachers’ weekly wages have decreased $30 per week to $1,092 in 2015, while all college graduates’ average weekly wages have increased $124 to reach $1,416. Those numbers are adjusted for inflation. However, non-wage benefits as a share of total compensation are more important for teachers than for other professionals. Non-wage benefits can include prepaid insurance premiums and pensions.

Local Education Funding Pension Costs State Education Funding
Education Week, 4/2/18

Digging deeper into that $300 million increase in Federal Aid for poor students

“The $300 million increase … is split evenly between two of those four formulas, with targeted and finance incentive grants each getting $150 million more in fiscal 2018 than fiscal 2017…Targeted grants provide more money per child as a district’s poverty rate increases, while finance incentive grants are designed to address funding environments in “good finance”—those that spend relatively large amounts on schools and do so equitably—and “bad finance” states.”

Federal Education Funding Funding Equity
Hechinger Report, 3/26/18

School districts’ uphill battle to get good deals on ed tech

The market research firm IDC estimates that $4.9 billion was spent on devices by K-12 schools in 2015, and the Software and Information Industry Association estimates that nearly $8.4 billion was spent on software. Yet the same device or program can cost more from one state to another and even from district to district. Responsibility to negotiate with vendors falls on school districts that often do not have the time or resources to drive a hard bargain.

School Money and Performance
The 74, 3/28/18

Congress uses new funding bill to reassert itself in ESSA implementation

Tucked into a report filed with the $1.3 trillion government funding bill passed last week is a reminder to states — through the federal Education Department — that their ESSA accountability plans must include assurances that they’ll require districts to use school improvement dollars for organizations or individuals “that have practical expertise in the development or use of evidence-based strategies and programs to improve teaching, learning, and schools.”

Federal Education Funding School Money and Performance
Education Week, 3/15/18

Indianapolis, Puerto Rico, and three other districts raise their hands for funding pilot

Indianapolis, Puerto Rico, and three other school districts have applied to join the Every Student Succeeds Act’s weighted student-funding pilot during the 2018-19 school year. Participating districts can combine federal, state, and local dollars into a single funding stream tied to individual students. English-language learners, children in poverty, and students in special education—who cost more to educate—would carry with them more money than other students.

Federal Education Funding Funding Equity
Washington Post, 4/2/18

Fed up with school spending cuts, Oklahoma teachers walk out

The walkout in Oklahoma — which could stretch for days — is part of a wave of educator revolts striking states where tax cuts have drained state funding for schools. In Kentucky, teachers rallied Monday in Frankfort, the state capital, against teacher pension reforms, shutting down schools in a dozen districts. In Arizona, teachers have threatened to strike if they do not get a 20 percent raise and an infusion of money into schools.

State Education Funding
Brookings Institute, 3/20/18

Can money attract more minorities into the teaching profession?

The survey asks districts about whether they offer financial incentives either to help recruit new teachers or to target bonus payment to specific teachers. The survey provides eight different financial incentive options. The first four types of incentives are intended as recruitment tools and are, by nature, short-term rewards. The remaining four incentives are intended to reward specific types of teachers or those filling specific needs the district may have, and the reward is generally more permanent.

School Money and Performance
Education Week, 3/20/18

Educators, finance officers team up to build a better budget

Beaverton is one of a rapidly expanding network of districts in the Smarter School Spending coalition, which uses so-called “continuous improvement” tools to integrate budget and academic staff and planning in schools. Instead of a small circle of staff poring over spreadsheets in marathon budget meetings once or twice a year, the districts involve everyone from finance officers and principals to teachers and janitors in ongoing conversations about solving instructional problems in sustainable ways.

School Money and Performance
LA Times, 3/22/18

Op-Ed: Money matters in education, as long as you spend it at the right time and on the right students

In one such study, infusions of dollars to poor school districts, as a result of court-ordered reform, led to a 10% increase in the predicted graduation rate for students from low-income families and a projected 10% rise in their lifetime earnings. Other research found that increasing K-12 spending by 10% added a half-year of schooling and a wage boost of nearly 10%. “A 22 percent increase in per-pupil spending,” the study concluded “is [estimated to be] large enough to eliminate the education gap between children from low-income and nonpoor families.”

School Money and Performance
Real Clear Education, 3/20/18

Unfunded pensions could spell disaster for Kentucky

Over a nine year period, pension funding in the state’s budget increased from $624 million in 2008 to $1.5 billion in 2017. Such increases divert funds from other government priorities such as public education, or force the government to take on more debt through increased deficit spending, thereby worsening the state’s financial position even further.

Pension Costs