Education Reform Commission Plays Odd Game on School Funding

When you were growing up, did you ever play the game "Guess Who?"?

Image by Bethany Khan

The premise is simple: each person starts with a collection of different characters, and then through a series of questions ("Is this person wearing a hat?" Does she have glasses?") the players race to narrow down to a pre-selected character card.

Martha Ann Todd, Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, must have been a formidable "Guess Who?" player in her day. PAGE reports that she led off the latest meeting of the Funding Committee of the Georgia Education Reform Commission with "a presentation of data comparing Georgia's proposed new education funding formula with the formula implemented in the states of Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee." What's interesting is the criteria for selecting those states:

1. The state’s average 2013 NAEP scale score must be higher than Georgia’s in at least one of the following areas: 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, 4th grade math, or 8th grade math. This difference must be statistically significant.

2. The state’s average 2013 NAEP scale score is not lower (statistically significant) than Georgia’s in at least any of the following areas: 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, 4th grade math, or 8th grade math.

3. The state’s percent of students performing at Proficient or higher on the 2013 NAEP must be greater than Georgia’s in at least two of the following areas: 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, 4th grade math, or 8th grade math. [NOTE: But not necessarily statistically significant].

4. The state must be similar to Georgia in terms of the percentage of NAEP test takers who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

And then there are the asterisks: Texas didn't quite meet the set criteria, scoring lower than Georgia on 4th grade reading, and, heck, Tennessee is not statistically superior to Georgia on any NAEP measure, but they are improving.  Basically, GOSA can choose to pick any state that fits the narrative.

That narrative would be something like this: to quell the rebellion on the funding committee that has argued that they should consider the adequacy of funding, not just the distribution of the funds, GOSA needs to establish through engineered comparisons that funding is adequate for the performance desired--through comparison to lesser funded states.

Hence, GOSA chooses to ignore statistical significance when comparing NAEP test proficiency rates, yielding a table that shows Georgia faltering behind these "comparison" states:

Percent Proficient or above relative to Georgia (statistical significance be damned!)
	GA	FL	KY	NC	TX	TN
4th grade reading	34	39	36	35	28	34
8th grade reading	32	33	36	35	31	33
4th grade math	39	41	41	45	41	40
8th grade math	29	31	30	36	38	28

However, NAEP clearly indicates through maps and charts which differences meet the test of statistical significance. With their guidance, the GOSA chart looks more like this:

Statistically significant Percent Proficient or above relative to Georgia
	GA	FL	KY	NC	TX	TN
4th grade reading	34	39	36	35	28	34
8th grade reading	32	33	36	35	31	33
4th grade math	39	41	41	45	41	40
8th grade math	29	31	30	36	38	28

Georgia performs very nearly the same as these states, despite having a greater percentage of children in poverty (27%).

What Todd glosses over is that the carefully-selected comparison states (with two gimmes), represent the aft end of national funding for schools.

	Total PPE	Rank Total PPE	State PPE	Rank State PPE
Georgia	$10370	38	$4503	40
Florida	$9207	44	$3528	48
Kentucky	$10533	37	$5782	24
North Carolina	$8670	48	$5375	32
Tennessee	$8953	46	$4129	44
Texas	$10191	40	$3928	47
US	$12380		$5650
PPE=per pupil expenditure. Source US Census Bureau: Public Education Finance 2013 Table 11.

Georgia is ranked 38th in total per pupil expenditures, but when you look at the state's share of this funding, Georgia's rank drops to 40th in the nation.

And here is the most stunning bit of clever omission in this entire charade:
Of these five comparison states, all three with state per pupil expenditures less than Georgia's have pending suits or have lost suits over the adequacy of education funding in their states (National Conference of State Legislatures).

• Texas Texas Taxpayer & Student Fairness Coalition (TTSFC) v. Scott. Trial court has ruled that the state's education funding system in inequitable, inadequate, and unconstitutional. Currently on appeal. Education Law Center.
• Florida. CSS v. Florida State Bd. of Educ. argues that "the state’s funding system fails to 'make adequate provision for education,' as the state constitution requires, because it relies too heavily on local funding and provides insufficient funding." Stalled since 2009 by state action, the Florida Supreme Court upheld a trial court decision against the state's motion to dismiss.  The case will go to trial in 2016. Education Law Center.
• Tennessee. Hamilton County Bd. of Educ. v. Haslam. Filed in March 2015, seven county school districts contend that the state “breached its duty under the Tennessee Constitution to provide a system of free public education for the children of this state.” Education Law Center.

 The Funding Committee of the Georgia Education Reform Commission must continue to maintain their skepticism of these funding plans being presented on behalf of Governor Deal. This latest contrived presentation by the Governor's Office seeks to baffle the committee rather than provide clarity on the adequacy of Georgia's K-12 education funding. If Georgia truly seeks to be a educational leader, we do not need to be seeking comparisons to states whose own citizens are contesting the adequacy of the funding of their schools.