Hi Christine!
>>when you say that you see no connection between better education and more spending
"But dozens of studies of public education have found that there is no consistent link between higher spending and student achievement. As Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby puts it, "The current predicament of school finance is a failure of productivity rather than a failure of spending." What makes schools succeed isn't money but structure, parental involvement, discipline and non-faddish curriculums. None of that has to cost more money, else Catholic schools that deliver good results at about half the cost of public
schools wouldn't exist."
from The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- January 19, 1998
Review & Outlook
Dollars to Students, Not Districts
A new CNN/Gallup poll finds that 53% of Americans are dissatisfied with
their local schools. Among inner-city parents, the numbers go even higher.
Every survey shows that the quality of schools is the number one concern.
Nonetheless, the most pressing local issue in education now is the
court-driven effort to equalize spending among school districts. The
advocates of this movement, including the kind of people who end up as
state judges, believe educational outcomes will improve if we do mainly
one thing: Spend more money.
Eighteen states have seen their funding systems based on property taxes
declared unconstitutional by courts that view equal spending in education
as a fundamental right. Meeting that goal isn't easy because liberals want it
to mean a wealth transfer from well-off districts to struggling ones. New
Jersey has been in court for a decade on the issue. But a new breed of
education reformers has come up with an idea that holds great promise:
making sure public school dollars follow the child rather than getting
funneled to individual districts where how those dollars are spent is rarely
the call of parents, teachers or even principals.
Circumventing the centralized "district-centered" model would mean that if
schools successfully attract students with their individual grants their
budgets would increase in the same way that private companies expand
market share. Such a system would reward success and superior
performance and discipline failure in a way school districts have abysmally
failed to do.
The concept of child-centered education isn't just a theory. Lisa Keegan,
Arizona's innovative superintendent of education, will have an initiative on
her state's November ballot that would shift capital funding from local
districts to the state, eliminate most property taxes and replace them with a
three-quarter-cent sales tax. She says her idea of "strapping" dollars on the
backs of students would eliminate the worst inequities, relieve pressure on
property taxes in poor districts, and give parents real leverage over the
bureaucracy. Ms. Keegan knows that without her reform, Arizona, which
saw its property tax method of financing schools declared invalid in 1994,
inevitably will be forced into a "Robin Hood" looting of wealthy districts so
that the budgets of poorer districts can be augmented, but with no
fundamental reforms.
Giving each child a state grant of, say, $4,500 a year and allowing him to
attend any school of his choice would vastly expand the network of 280
innovative charter schools that Arizona has built up in just three years. "We
need to move from a 'school system' to a 'system of schools' that responds
to individual student needs better than a bureaucracy can," Ms. Keegan
says. Local districts would be free to tax their residents if they wanted to
augment the state grant.
Critics of the Keegan approach, which was developed in cooperation with
the Goldwater Institute and Ohio's Buckeye Institute, say its basic state
grant will be inadequate and that more money will have to be found for
education. That's why states such as Ohio and Illinois have seen their
GOP governors propose tax increases. But dozens of studies of public
education have found that there is no consistent link between higher
spending and student achievement. As Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby
puts it, "The current predicament of school finance is a failure of
productivity rather than a failure of spending." What makes schools
succeed isn't money but structure, parental involvement, discipline and
non-faddish curriculums. None of that has to cost more money, else
Catholic schools that deliver good results at about half the cost of public
schools wouldn't exist.
The two states most in need of a look at a child-centered financing system
are Ohio and New Hampshire. Jo Ann Davidson, the Ohio GOP House
Speaker, says she expects Governor Voinovich to attempt to raise sales
taxes to meet a court-ordered equalization of funding. Ken Blackwell,
Ohio's state treasurer, helped defeat a similar proposal last year and is
making child-centered learning a centerpiece of his campaign for governor.
New Hampshire, the only state without any broad-based state taxes, faces
a real challenge to its traditions. More than 90% of its education budget
comes from local property taxes, the highest of any state. This led to
significant disparities in per-pupil spending from a low of $3,533 a year in
Farmington to a high of $12,670 in Waterville Valley. Last month the state
Supreme Court invalidated that system because of such wide disparities.
Many are calling for the creation of a first-ever income or sales tax.
This has led Republicans such as former Gov. John Sununu to call for a
constitutional amendment enshrining the local property tax system. Perhaps
it's time for some Yankee ingenuity.
A better way to keep local control in New Hampshire is to devolve power
even further--to individual parents. Students would be ensured a minimal
level of state support that local towns could build on and a maximum of
flexibility in what kind of school they could attend. We have little doubt
that many different charter and private schools would flourish under such a
system with no need for tax increases.
Conservatives everywhere are naturally leery of adjustments in the way
local schools are funded. But lawsuits and activist judges are inevitably
eroding that system, and it's the responsibility of those who value freedom
and local control to think "outside of the box." If they do there is a way the
growing popular momentum for choice and parental empowerment can be
harnessed to address the challenge of equalizing school funding.
interactive.wsj.com
See also The Cost of Not Educating Our Children
edreform.com |
