Sunday, August 2, 2015

A little context for Governor Deal's rant on education funding

I can't say I was surprised by the tenor and the content of Governor Nathan Deal's recent defense of his plan to disrupt the education funding formula for Georgia. The good governor is obviously miffed that his hand-picked commission would defy him on one central tenet: that the commission should not consider what it costs to educate a child in Georgia.   That's where the funding express train derailed,

Commission chair Charles Knapp was forced to tell the governor that the commission could not meet the unreasonably ambitious deadline of remaking the Georgia education system in six months. Commission members spoke heresy: "It all starts with what does it cost. You’ve got to know that (Rep. Tom Dickson, R-Cohutta)” and [in reference to changing the formulation for teacher salaries] "There’s no way not to have a huge impact, and in some cases, a crippling impact, on individuals and school districts if we don’t" (Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn). Governor Deal's Education Reform Commission Pushes Back on School Funding, AJC).

Governor Deal's letter to the AJC relied on one standby argument of the disruptive reform crowd--that since 1970 education spending has increased 170% with no corresponding gain in student achievement. This is a well-worn argument put forth by the Cato Institute that tracks inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending over time. What Cato does not admit nor control for is that society and our schools have changed radically in forty years.

Any comparison that starts pre-1975 is suspect as schools were substantially transformed in 1975 with the passage of PL94-142, the Education for all Handicapped Children Act. Signed by President Ford, this Act provided that students with mental and physical disabilities would no longer be kept at home or shuffled off to institutions.  Instead they would attend classes and receive service in the least restrictive environment possible. This was a case where as a society we finally recognized that it was time to do the right thing by our students with disabilities. Any district finance officer can tell you providing these services is not cheap, and the federal government has never fully funded its share.  But no one would suggest we should return to the way we treated these students pre-1975.

Obviously, compliance with 94-142 alone does not explain the increase in the cost to educate children. Anyone who has darkened the door of a school building realizes that schools today require many more resources to meet the expectations placed upon them, from the technology to produce 21st century learners (and to take state-mandated assessments) to the career labs that enable our graduates to leave school with industry certifications, and to the counseling and even psychological services we provide our students. Most importantly, education is still an enterprise that depends heavily upon highly-qualified individuals to guide and educate a population of students with greater needs and challenges. The costs to employ these persons and to retain the best personnel requires funding.

And to provide one extra bit of context for the governor's assertion, the esteemed CATO institute notes that Georgia's education funding has decreased sharply in recent years and now represents substantially less than the 170% increase the Governor suggested was true for Georgia:

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/state-education-trends#/GA


Looking specifically at Georgia, we can track changes in funding per FTE using school system finance reports (revenues) maintained by the Business Services division of the Georgia Department of Education. Information is available for 1996-2014. Adjusting those combined local, state, and federal funds for inflation and dividing by the number of FTE (students) served each year, it is immediately evident that Georgia schools for the past two decades have not enjoyed a surge in funding.
In fact after almost two decades, the amount being spent per FTE in 2014, $5653.29 is only 12% higher (in constant 1996 dollars) than the amount being spent per student in 1996, $5062.85. Spreadsheet of this data can be accessed here.

But what about results?  The chart above also shows Georgia's performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Despite uneven funding, Georgia students continue to make progress on this national assessment. [The Georgia Department of Education provides an excellent analysis of Georgia's performance on the NAEP]. In fact, Georgia's 4th grade students NAEP reading scores surpassed the national average score in 2013 ("New NAEP Scores Released: Georgia Shows Progress"). In 2012, Ga DOE celebrated a singular distinction for the state:
Georgia leads the country when looking at year-to-year growth on the most recent national tests. One-year growth on the SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement (AP), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Math, Reading and Science shows Georgia is the only state in the country to make gains on the most recent administration of each test. GADOE
Kudos to those legislators with the backbone to stand up to the Governor and insist that the state must consider the costs to achieve the results needed to move our state forward.

No comments:

Post a Comment