Ben Spielberg is a blogger who is knowledgeable about budgets and economics. In this post, he refutes the arguments of StudentsFirst leader Dmitri Mehlhorn that how money is spent matters, but we spend enough now. Spielberg works at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He knows whereof he writes. He says Mehlhorn is wrong, and he backs it up with “The Truth About School Funding.” Read his article to find and follow the links.
Spielberg marshals an impressive array of facts and data to show that we are far from achieving equitable or adequate funding of the neediest schools:
But what is adequate and equitable school funding? Researchers Bruce Baker and Danielle Farie and civil rights lawyer David Sciarra, who produce a National Report Card on school funding fairness, discuss this question at length in their 2015 report. One of the most important principles they note is that, because “[v]arying levels of funding are required to provide equal educational opportunities to children with different needs[,] finance systems should provide more funding to districts serving larger shares of students in poverty.”
School funding in the United States doesn’t come close to meeting this criterion; as Baker, Farie, and Sciarra show, fourteen states have regressive school funding systems, meaning they allocate less money to schools serving disadvantaged students than they do to schools serving more affluent student populations. Nineteen other states have roughly equivalent funding between the two types of schools. Only four states – Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Delaware – score high enough across all of the researchers’ criteria (funding level; funding distribution; effort, or funding as a share of the state’s economy; and coverage, or “the share of school-age children enrolled in public schools and the degree to which there is economic disparity between households in the public versus private education system”) to have their funding systems deemed “fair.”
This analysis likely represents an upper bound on the degree of school funding equity in the United States. While California appears to have roughly equivalent funding for low- and high-income schools in the report, for example, there are major funding discrepancies between some of the state’s “basic aid” districts, which serve affluent students, and districts that serve lower-income populations. Within-district variations in spending also go undetected in the report’s metrics, as may situations in which funding that is supposed to follow high-need students doesn’t reach them.
Spielberg shows that Mehlhorn’s comparisons of spending in charter schools and spending in public schools are inaccurate.
What I have always noticed is that the argument “money doesn’t matter” always comes from people who have plenty of money and whose children are in very well-funded schools. I have never heard it said by any parent or teacher in an urban school.
Spielberg concludes:
Finally, it’s important to remember that even if aggregate funding levels were higher, aggregate numbers don’t speak to the distribution of funding. We’ve yet to target and sustain increased funding in schools that serve our neediest students. Especially when it comes to low-income areas, America definitely can – and should – invest more in K-12 public education.
We Should Avoid False Choices and Invest in Kids’ Opportunities
Increased funding, to be useful, must of course be spent in smart ways. Money by itself isn’t a panacea. But it’s important to get the facts right: money matters, and it matters quite a bit.
It is incredibly counterproductive to pit increased funding and smart spending against each other (though Mehlhorn’s piece acknowledges “that money spent properly can be helpful in improving achievement,” it balks at the idea that schools need additional funding), especially when schools serving the most disadvantaged students tend to get the fewest resources. Giving schools more money and making sure they spend that money wisely are complementary, not competing, goals.
Pitting education funding against social insurance and safety net spending, as former Tennessee education commissioner Kevin Huffman did in a recent article, is also absurd. While it’s true that adequate income support and health care matter most for low-income students and that school-based reforms cannot, contrary to Huffman’s assertion, “be the lynchpin of social mobility in America,” schools are still very important. Those truly committed to an equal opportunity agenda should stop taking potshots at its components and start getting to work on raising the revenues necessary to implement it.
As David Kirp wrote recently about pre-K programs: “Money doesn’t guarantee good outcomes, but it helps…In education, as in much of life, you get what you pay for.”
In America right now, we unfortunately don’t pay for the education system our students deserve. Until we do, we won’t get it.
Thanks, Diane, for sharing! Can you please add a note, though, that my blog is completely independent from my work at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and that the views I express there are my own?
For powerful lessons on how to obfuscate, distract and lie without on the surface seeming to, everyone should read Jersey Jazzman’s recent exchanges with Mehlhorn (although not on a full stomach unless you’re looking for a diet aid). Apparently Jazzman is going to go one more round with him too, bless him. Mehlhorn’s writing is a wonderful example of that saying about every word being a lie, including “a”, “and” and “the”.
That great quip was spoken decades ago in an interview with author Mary McCarthy, in regard to fellow author and literary nemesis, Lillian Hellman.
Given the times we live in, however, I think we need to modify it when referring to the so-called reformers, and go a step further, in acknowledgement of their hyper-mega-ultra extreme mendacity: “Everything they say is a lie, even their punctuation marks.”
That great quip was first spoken by author Mary McCarthy, in regard to her literary nemesis Lillian Hellman.
Given the times we live in and the opponents we face, however, it’s time to modify it in recognition of the super, ultra, mega, hyper extreme mendacity if the so-called reformers: “Everything they say is a lie, even their punctuation marks.”
Thanks Dienne (and Diane), I’ve also been following the dialogue between Jersey Jazzman and Mehlhorn. I find Mehlhorn to be quite oily, deceptive and slippery, he uses so many straw men and red herrings. He’s against teacher unions because he claims they spend large amounts of money advocating for teachers and not the kids. He claims that the NEA and AFT spend $700 million a year lobbying and advocating for unions and teachers, not the children. How unfair and horrible and how dare they. And yet he makes no mention of all the money of the billionaire boys’ club. Huh? He claims that he’s for private sector unions but not public unions and especially teacher unions which he further claims hurt the private unions. OY VEY!
He states that public schools are a monopoly which compel or force kids to attend these government schools. At which point, I scream at my computer in total frustration. Then he uses the choice. choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, ad nauseam mantra. He’s the happy face of the reform propaganda mill.
Yes, he’s trying to be one of the “good cops” of so-called reform, the reasonable ones, pretending to debate in good faith (while in fact tossing off long streams of fallacies and half-truths) while the “bad cops” snarl, intimidate, scheme, undermine the public schools, and loot them (the Rhee’s, Moskowitz’s, Chavis, Broad’s, etc.).
In fact, he’s no better than any of the rest.
The Jersey Jazzman/Melhorn debate is amazing. JJ obliterates Melhorn’s arguments, which are incredibly painful to read.
And Melhorn is all about “choice” until it comes to standardized testing. Then everyone must comply. On Twitter, he has often called out the opt-out movement as “racist”. I’d love to see someone debate him on that one.
BTW, if money well spent is more important than more money, I assume Mehlhorn opposes standardized testing, test prep, ed “consultants”, most ed tech, etc., right?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
From the posting: “…the argument “money doesn’t matter” always comes from people who have plenty of money and whose children are in very well-funded schools.”
Sometimes it’s the silence that is deafening and calls our attention.
Go right to the epicenter of self-styled “education reform.” Bill Gates went to Lakeside School. His two children go to Lakeside School.
Leave aside rheephormista pathetic deflections and whines like “But it’s a private school!” and “He can send his children wherever he wants!” and the like. It’s about policy and results. View Lakeside School through the lens of rheephorm in the same way when it’s focused on the vast majority, i.e., public schools and their associated communities. Where is the prudent fiscal management and attention to weeding out frivolities? You know, like state-of-the-art PE facilities and enriched fine and performing arts programs and an extensive sports calendar that shrivels up the time for standardized test prep?
Bill Gates and the other shot callers in corporate education reform, along with their enforcers and enablers, know that you are not going to get world-class outputs without world-class inputs. *That includes ponying up the wherewithal to have small class sizes to facilitate teacher-student relationships. See Bill Gates, speech, 9-23-2005, to his alma mater.*
You want the Mercedes-Benz educational experience? You won’t find in the Rheephorm Aisle of a 99¢ Store under the section labeled “Cheap Gimmicks FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.”
Surprised? Don’t be. The only surprise is that rheephormsters think they can lie to our faces and get away with it.
Not on this blog.
😎
I can’t help but what wonder what is the final result this reform momentum is truly seeking? The total destruction of public schools? Or has public schools simply become a chip to play for votes or for money, whichever might be needed more at any particular time?
Not total destruction because privately managed charters can’t be profitable without public schools to return the expensive to educate kids to. I think it’s that they really don’t care one way or the other about public education except to the extent they can get their hands on the money spent on it. After all, their own kids will never set foot in a public school.
Dienne,
it’s interesting–this is exactly the point I want to learn more about. Many conservative family members of mine who really do want to see public schools do well don’t believe the intention has ever been profit. They think it’s just business people getting involved who don’t understand education.
Where can I find more info about things being profit-driven, or is it more that they want to model schools after profit-driven ventures but with a goal aside from profit?
That and the handling of integration (especially in terms of black teachers keeping their jobs or not) are the two areas I want more light on so answers can be reached.
Addendum to my comments—
An article in today’s LATIMES entitled “Deterioration of public school arts programs has been particularly jarring in L.A.”
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-lausd-arts-20151102-story.html
Understand that while LAUSD squandered $131 million [yes, that’s right, MILLION] on a predictably faulty info system and almost twice that on iPads, they were starving the arts. And who engineered this catastrophe, who spearheaded the rheephormista charge that makes charters and privatization look good by comparison? The rheephormsters, Broadie John Deasy [until recently LAUSD Supt.] leading the charge, from within.
When’s there’s a competition, do you let the coaches from the opposing team call the shots for yours?
Isn’t that self-defeating?
Questions, questions, questions…
But what do I know? I’m just a decidedly Krazy TA.
😎
Well the other issue is that if the public is paying for both (charters and public schools), what kind of investment is that? Like hedging? From an investment standpoint, it doesn’t seem prudent to me at all UNLESS the charters are considered the Research and Development piece of the investment. ??
We should be demanding “FAIR funding”. Equitable = Equal = The Same.
Students in struggling schools need MORE than those in the affluent suburbs for it to be a FAIR system.
Agreed – equitable does actually mean that schools serving more disadvantaged students should get more money, as noted in the piece :).
Many people misunderstand the meaning of “equitable funding”; they read it as, “equal funding”.
More importantly we need equitable school opportunities and equitable school experiences. These of course need funding.
If people could see the difference between a typical chemistry lab in affluent suburbia and a lab facility in any poor rural or urban school they would be appalled. The importance of equitable opportunities and experiences would be more than striking.
You can substitute any of the following for the chem lab:
gymnasium/fields
band room/instruments
cafeteria
playground
auditorium/stage
computer room
technology (shops)
classrooms
bathrooms
“Many people misunderstand the meaning of “equitable funding”; they read it as, “equal funding”.”
In fairness to the rest of us, you did write “Equitable = Equal = The Same” just a few hours ago.
There’s more to funding than equity, though. Usually, Utah is seen as having a very equitable funding system. However, Utah spends about $6200 per student per year, has ridiculously large class sizes, and is paying 13.1% less for education than it did in 2008.
“Those truly committed to an equal opportunity agenda should stop taking potshots at its components and start getting to work on raising the revenues necessary to implement it.
“
Therein is big part of the problem. There is little real commitment to an ”equal opportunity agenda” among those who could address the inequitable funding issue. The “equal opportunity ruse” is too often a reason to divert public funds into a dark hole, witness the charter school scandals and real estate deals that this concept has leveraged.
I think looking just at flows of money to schools based on conventional indicators of poverty will miss the actual costs of education. Some of these are legislated and warranted. For example, there are greater costs for students who are learning English and for children in special education (up to $13,000 + a year) and for schools conceptualized from the get-go to be full spectrum centers for learning. By that I mean studies in the arts, sciences and humanities, health and physical education all with well-prepared and experienced teachers. Add school counselors, assigned social workers, an array of after-school programs, coordinated with child-care.
Of course there are cost savings in a stripped down 3R’s curriculum with one teacher in charge of 100 students looking at a computer screen and kick out kids who fail to be 100 percent compliant 100 percent of the time.
Somewhere along the way there must be some revisiting of the aspirations for public education, and who is writing these aspirations (or re-writing them), and on what authority.
There are uncalculated costs inflicted on schools from policies and preferential funding (federal and state) for practices that make no sense. Among these are obligatory and excessive tests, authorized online charter schools that are educational scams, and requirements for technologies and software products that are subject to a rapid pace of carefully planned obsolescence.
This is not to say that poverty is a minor consideration in mustering and allocating resources, but that public education has been seriously damaged by “let’s pretend we care about equality of opportunity marketing”. of really bad policies.
Should more money be spent on schools that serve fewer ELL and at-risk students compared with the district or state as a whole? Parents of students who attend neither “struggling” schools nor “affluent suburban schools” may want to know. (And parents of students at “affluent suburban schools” may want to know, too.)
More money should be spent on schools, specifically the students in them, period. Not on consultants, coaches, mentors, tests, useless professional development or bogus panaceas that change with women’s hemlines.
And even more money should be spent on high-needs students.
And the Overclass should be made to pay for every penny of it, via financial transaction taxes, and income and capital gains tax rates similar to those in existence under that Old Bolshevik, Dwight David Eisenhower.
I guess it’s no skin off my back if every penny is being paid by the Overclass.