BCT Editorial – 4/30/06

This page was last updated on April 30, 2006.

Make or break; Editorial; Beaver County Times; April 30, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“State lawmakers must authorize funding equity study for school districts

“Lawmakers face a two-part test to show they are serious about making funding for public education in Pennsylvania more equitable.

“They need to take the test seriously because the state already is getting low marks in this area. (Education Week gives it a C-minus.)

“The first part is the easiest. Good Schools Pennsylvania, the Education Policy and Leadership Center and the Education Law Center have asked the Legislature to authorize what’s called a costing-out study for public education, and it’s picked up promising support in the state House and Senate.

“Good Schools says a costing-out study is needed to align funding with the standards that students are required or expected to meet. The study would be charged with determining:

“- What resources and conditions schools need to enable their students to meet the state’s student learning standards?

“- How much funding is required to build and maintain the necessary resources and conditions?

“- What kind of state education finance system would best deliver that funding to all schools?

“The advocacy groups aren’t asking state lawmakers to go where no state legislature has ever gone before. Cost-out studies have been performed or are under way in 38 states.

“Their effort is off to a promising start. A number of lawmakers, including state Reps. Mike Veon, Frank LaGrotta, Mark Mustio and Nick Kotik and state Sens. Gerald LaValle and John Pippy, have signed on as co-sponsors of concurrent resolutions that call for the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee ‘to conduct a comprehensive, statewide costing-out study concerning the education resources and related costs necessary to support the expectations for academic proficiency for all students.’

“The committee, which would be authorized to hire consultants to help it, would have a year to come up with a final report. (The Pennsylvania Board of Education will decide in May whether to undertake its own costing-out study.)

“Given the worth of such a study, lawmakers should have no problem acting on this part of the test.

“The hard part comes when lawmakers actually have to act on the committee’s recommendations. The shelves of Harrisburg are bulging with well-intended, well-researched, worthwhile studies that were never acted on.”

[RWC] I could be wrong, but given the Times proclivity for big government “solutions,” in this context I suspect “well-intended, well-researched, worthwhile studies” translates to “studies that advocate more spending.”

“Another ‘incomplete’ is unacceptable because the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which has changed the way public education in America is graded. The gross inequities of the present system - the per-pupil spending difference between the highest and lower districts is $10,000 in Pennsylvania - make it much harder for many school districts to meet those standards.

“For now, lawmakers need to get the easy part of the test out of the way as quickly as possible so they can start focusing on the make-or-break second half of the test.”

[RWC] This editorial is merely the latest in a litany promoting the myth that “poor” school districts receive substandard funding. I’ve exposed this myth a bunch of times. Rather than repeat myself, please read my critique of “Starting points.”