Commission chair Charles Knapp, UGA President Emeritus had described the meeting as a "critical time":
"We've been talking thus far conceptually, and now we're really starting to work the numbers," ("School funding question top task for Deal's education panel" Online Athens).
Dr. Knapp is in a difficult position: he's charged not with determining an appropriate amount of funding for Georgia students but with devising a new way of redistributing whatever portion the General Assembly decides to appropriate for public education.
[And it should be noted here that replacing the current QBE funding formula with anything will kill those nagging, specific charges about exactly how much the Governor underfunds the state's public schools in each budget].
One specific concern for the funding subcommittee as they careen toward their deadline is how to weight the needs of certain student groups, particularly students in poverty.
The funding committee did post a weighting report that included one striking chart showing the correlation of high poverty and student performance on state tests:
The chart reinforces the relationship between student poverty and academic performance. Poverty increases as the scale moves to the right and test performance decreases as the vertical scale increases. The notes indicate that the four outliers--schools with very high levels of students not meeting standards--are the state schools (serving the deaf and blind) and a state charter virtual school.
The chart makes clear what should be painfully obvious: students raised in poverty face distinct academic challenges that require greater support. What has Governor Deal's response been for these students? To label their schools as failing and to petulantly disparage these schools for having the audacity to spend more to address the needs of these children in poverty. (Politifact Georgia)
Dr. Knapp is no stranger to the challenges involved with educating disadvantaged students. As chair of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (2007) he oversaw the creation of a plan for recreating education set out in Tough Choices or Tough Times (executive summary). Here is that commission's vision for supporting schools serving the disadvantaged:
The additional funds for schools serving high concentrations of disadvantaged students will make it possible for those schools to stay open from early in the morning until late at night, offering a wide range of supportive services to the students and their families. They will have the funds needed to screen and diagnose their students, and to make sure that they get the eyeglasses they need or the hearing aids or the therapy for dyslexia or any of the many other things that have prevented these children from learning as well as their wealthier peers. These schools will be able to afford the tutors they need, the counselors and mentors that are the birthright of richer children elsewhere. And they will have the staff needed to reach out to the community and to find the community leaders in the private sector who will develop campaigns to raise the aspirations of these young people, so they come to believe that they too can reach the top if they work hard enough. (Tough Choices or Tough Times, executive summary, 18)This vision of positioning disadvantaged students for success was predicated on using funding to "level-up" these schools. Under Governor Deal's restrictive charge to the commission, they can recommend additional funding weights for students in poverty, but those tweaks seem unlikely to institute the comprehensive intervention envisioned by the previous reform group led by Dr. Knapp.
With one meeting cancelled and one funding subcommittee meeting remaining, Dr Knapp and the commission faces some distinct challenges, least of these would be what does one do when the numbers don't "work out"?
[Hat tip to Claire Suggs and GBPI for the reference to Dr. Charles Knapp's work on Tough Choices or Tough Times in Education Reform Commission – Can We Talk About the Cost? ]
