So Much Confusion On School Funding
ArchPundit
Now the wording is different in the Roeser column.
Under a Gov. Birkett, legislation would be prepared to require every Illinois school district to spend at least 65 percent of expenditures directly on K-12 classroom instruction, a marked increase from the 58.4 percent now expended. Educational reformers have long been critical of the bureaucratic overload that hobbles teaching because of top-heavy administrative staffs. Illinois has 881 school districts, each with a superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal and assistant principal. Some administrators in Illinois are earning as much as $300,000 a year along with lavish pensions. It’s amazing when you consider that almost half of the 881 districts have fewer than 150 students.
I have a slightly different calculation using the 2004 numbers for the state–59.2%, but close enough to know we are using similar numbers.
I made a bad prediction previously, but I think after going through several districts I’m familiar with that no one has thought through the implications of what such a rule would do.
In suburban schools, classroom instruction % would increase and in larger districts in areas with rural areas that transport students the percentage would increase as well.
However, in smaller districts, the ones that haven’t merged, the percentages are already close or above 65% and yet these are the districts facing some of the biggest problems.
In other words, simply forcing 65% of expenditures to be on classroom instruction would do little to nothing to solve the financial problems in those districts. Roeser tries to imply that administrators are making $300,000 in those districts and that is pure bunk. The areas that pay high administrative salaries are suburban districts in relatively wealthy areas.
Furthermore, such a restriction would hit hard on merged school districts. Those are districts that spend significantly more proprotionally on transportation than do suburban districts. By increasing the amount of travel students have to be bused, the districts have to spend more–and that isn’t accounted for in the formula.
If you look at general administrative costs, the highest proportion of costs are in relatively small districts that must have a certain positions filled, but do not have as large of a budget. No district can go without a superintendent obviously. Illinois already caps the percentage of these costs at 5% as well.
Where the higher proportion of funds is spent outside the classroom are in relatively well off districts where one observes higher support service or higher other costs. Those can include all sorts of differences including transportation, libraries, and other non-classroom programs.
The essential problem of such a plan is that it doesn’t address those districts that are most in need of help. It would make well off suburban and larger districts that have a decent tax base reduce extras offered in the districts. In districts that are small and in financial need, no changes will be made continuing to leave them in financial need. In districts that are merged districts where spending is below 65% for classroom instruction, the reason is because of higher than average transportation costs.
The ‘solution’ doesn’t actually address any of underlying problems of the Illinois educational system. The money being moved from other costs to direct classroom costs would stay in the districts that are relatively well off. It isn’t redistributed to financially strapped districts that are generally within or close to the cap.
Making the situation worse is that if those small districts were to merge, their non-classroom based costs will be higher due to transportation giving them an incentive not to merge–one of the worst decisions in many rural areas.
If one wants to solve school finance problems without a tax increase, one has to redistribute from wealthy districts to poor districts. There is simply no other way to do it. Those who attempt to throw a pithy catch phrase at the public are only going to continue the crisis and reinforce the decline of our rural communities and inner ring suburbs.
The larger issue of what is the exact right amount of non-classroom expenditures is hard to answer. For some communities, they need to spend more on transportation. Others wish to spend money on instructional support of have to if they have a high needs population. Other districts simply wish to spend more so their students have the ability to have more experiences.
The question for the state is what minimum level does it guarantee to all students? From there local districts can tax themselves and provide the service level the citizens want. The problem of capping non-classroom expenses is it doesn’t actually address where need is in Illinois.
All that said, it’s an incredibly good issue to run on in terms of how people perceive it so Birkett gets credit for picking a winning issue, even if the idea is flawed.