The current Ohio budget is fascinating because it contains apparently the first instance of a Governor's budget freezing in place the state's per pupil funding "formula" (which isn't really a formula, as I've discussed before) so that the basic aid each student receives in each district will be $6,000 for this coming school year and the one after and all future years.
As far as I can tell going back through as many budgets as are available on the Office of Budget and Management's website (through the 06-07 budget), Ohio has never frozen the basic state aid amount. And while the Evidence Based Model wasn't a classic per pupil funding formula, you could manipulate it to approximate per pupil funding, and it did represent an increase -- during the Great Recession, I might add.
This unprecedented freeze in the state's base aid amount is dangerous. That's because the Governor is putting in the $6,000 without any mention of school years, meaning he's trying to freeze that base aid figure permanently into law.
Why is this a problem? Several reasons.
The freezing of the base aid amount means inflationary increases for any costs schools must bear now fall (once again) to local property taxpayers
The $6,000 figure isn't even keeping pace with a simple inflationary increase from the 2007 formula (the so-called "Building Blocks") upon which the amount was based. So it's freezing into law an amount that's already too low (and there's an argument to be made that the 2007 formula was inadequate).
Re-calculating the 2007 formula using today's actual costs indicates that the $5,732 calculated in 2007 would probably be closer to $7,600
I'm not saying that you automatically need to increase base aid funding by $100 a year or something. That's totally arbitrary, though it's what the state has done now for a couple budget cycles. What I'm saying is let's actually figure out how much kids need in order to have the outstanding educational opportunities they deserve and we all want for them.
Then let's fund it.
But freezing the base aid figure in perpetuity I fear also freezes any hope that we will one day achieve that lofty goal our nation's founder envisioned.
I'm hopeful, though. The very reasonable and thoughtful Chairman of the House Finance Committee, Ryan Smith, R-Gallipolis, called the Governor's manipulation of winners and losers in his introduced funding plan "asinine".
In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled for the first of four times that the way Ohio funded its schools violated the state's constitutional responsibility to provide a "thorough and efficient" education to all kids because, for the most part, we relied too much on local property taxes to pay for schools.
Twenty years later, Ohio's looking again at a continuation of a steady de-commitment to the only specifically mandated thing Ohio's legislature is supposed to do -- fund public schools.
And this year's budget will make the problem worse if it isn't changed by the legislature. Why is that? Because the districts that will receive less state funding under Gov. John Kasich's budget are the districts least able to cope with those cuts -- small, rural districts, 83 percent of which will be cut. That's because they raise local revenue at a 116 percent lower rate than the districts that received flat or increased funding.
As you can see, it is difficult to understand how this budget won't make the unconstitutional problem worse for kids in rural districts.
Piggybacking on that, Ohioans are now paying more than ever in local property taxes for their schools -- a fact that more than anything proves that Ohio's school funding system remains unconstitutional.
This is what happens when the state steps away from the table at historic levels, as it did in 2011. Then refuses to develop a school funding formula that accurately costs out educational needs. Then continues to arbitrarily spend money in a haphazard way to create winners and losers out of a system that should only produce winners.
As Ohio legislators begin questioning administration officials about the latest budget, there is really only one question that needs answered: How does increasing the need for local property tax levies meet the state's constitutional mandate to reduce them?
I don't know what it is about Ohio's rural school districts, but it really looks like Gov. John Kasich has it out for them. In the latest batch of funding estimates for school districts, a whopping 83% of Ohio's rural school districts will receive less money in the 2018-2019 school year than they have received this school year. And nearly 80% of the poorest of those districts get cut.
Why is this a problem? Because poor, rural school districts simply can't raise local revenue at the rates of Ohio's wealthiest or biggest school districts. So even a small dollar cut in Noble Local is a monster cut to them because they can't raise enough local revenue to cover their 5.6% cut in state funding they're set to receive under Kasich's budget.
As you can see, Ohio's rural districts are paying for increases in Ohio's more urban and suburban locales. This is a function of Kasich's decision to wind down the "guarantee" -- a calculation done to offset funding losses due to declining enrollment.
Here's the problem: The loss in enrollment does not necessarily mean there's less service need. For example, if I have a district that has 100 students that cost $10,000 per pupil to educate and I lose 10% of those students, I'm still going to need the same number of teachers, custodians, buses, etc. But under Kasich, I will have $50,000 fewer state dollars with which to educate those students. That's the equivalent of a teacher.
I will be doing further analysis of these data in the coming days and weeks. But suffice it to say, Gov. John Kasich is taking state money from our poorest, rural school districts and using it to give small to moderate increases in our urban areas.
Oh, and all these cuts don't include the additional 1/3 loss in tangible personal property tax reimbursements Kasich's calling for in this budget. So chances are, far more than the 337 districts who get less money in two years will end up losing out. So stay tuned...
Amid much fanfare, Gov. John Kasich announced this week that his just-introduced budget provides a $200 million increase to Ohio's schools. However, as with most plans, the devil is in the details here. That's because Kasich rarely gives additional money to schools. He just moves money from one part of the budget to another.
So, for example, while he claims unprecedented levels of funding for schools, he is only talking about one line item in the budget -- the state foundation line. However, he has all but eliminated a line item that prior to his administration provided more than $1 billion a year to schools, which means this unprecedented increase in the one budget line item hasn't kept pace with inflation because of his unprecedented CUT in the other portion of the budget.
This same principle holds true for Kasich's $200 million increase alternative fact. Here are 8 line items in his budget that amount to a $227 million CUT to schools.
So his $200 million increase is, in fact, a cut.
And now we're being told that the state is going to phase out guarantees, which (depending on how it's calculated) means more than 1/2 of all Ohio school districts will be cut in direct aid, and disproportionately poor districts with shrinking populations.
So we have that analysis to look forward to later this week when the district runs are released.
I don't think Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) had any idea yesterday that his question would lead to the most disqualifying statement made by President-Elect Donald Trump's Secretary of Education nominee, billionaire Betsy DeVos. Here's the exchange, via CNN:
DeVos can't answer whether she prefers proficiency or student growth as the standard for student excellence. In fact, it appears she doesn't know there's been a controversy over the issue -- something a simple Google search reveals. Look, there's pressure involved in these hearings. I get it. So did DeVos simply run out of gas, forget, choke? I don't know. But the fact that she can't have a coherent discussion about student growth and proficiency scores and claims to want to run our nation's schools is frightening.
Why?
Because all efforts we make to turn around struggling schools, or reward high performing schools, or pay teachers, or rate schools and states , or establish charter schools or vouchers depends entirely on proficiency and student growth scores. In some cases, it's growth that takes the day. In others, it's proficiency. But to not know about these concepts is truly frightening. Kind of like hiring a basketball coach who doesn't understand wins and losses determine who reaches the playoffs. Yes. It's that problematic.
Nearly as disqualifying: her lack of understanding that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) can't be overseen by states (which was her pat answer to any tough policy issue: Let the states and localities decide how to handle it). IDEA is a federal program that supports schools' IEP implementation and helps them hire Special Education Intervention Specialists, among other things.
And because it's a federal program, it ensures that every school in the country is required to meet these minimum standards. DeVos said during her hearing that each state and district should be able to implement IDEA how they see fit. Either she is ignorant of the program or she believes fundamentally that the U.S. Department of Education should exercise zero oversight of the $70 billion in taxpayer dollars it oversees.
Other issues from yesterday:
She wouldn't tell Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who represented Sandy Hook in the House, whether guns around schools were a good idea (except to defend against grizzly bears)
She refused to say whether she would defend current regulations against sexual assaults on college campuses, though she did say that what Donald Trump bragged about doing with women was sexual assault.
She wouldn't commit to really any policies other than the same EduSpeak pablum everyone talks about -- ensuring kids and parents have opportunities. Who's possibly against that.
She outright refused to say that all schools that receive federal dollars should be put on the same playing field, which means charter and private schools will be judged differently than local public schools. She approvingly confirmed that charters currently are held to a different standard.
One more thing that concerned me. Here in Ohio, we have had a 20-year struggle with figuring out charter schools. The major turning point in our history with making these schools the high-quality options our children deserve came a few years ago when charter advocates and critics coalesced around the idea of quality governing school choices, not just the choice, quality be damned -- the If-Parents-Choose-It's-Inherently-A-Better-Option Fallacy.
As Dr. Macke Raymond of the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University put it: Education "is the only industry/sector where the market mechanism just doesn’t work. I think it’s not helpful to expect parents to be the agents of quality assurance throughout the state."
I thought it was telling that every time DeVos was asked about the quality issue -- whether a bunch of low performing choices are choices in a real sense -- she always returned to the choice for choice's sake refrain.
Maybe I'm sensitive to this because of our Herculean struggle with this issue here in Ohio, but not once did I hear her bring up quality first. Choice was first. Then quality. And that's concerning to me. Because for 20 years, Ohio operated like only the choice matters, and we became a national joke on charter school quality.
All the more concerning is that even without DeVos in charge, the feds have not had a good history here of investing in the "high-quality" charters their grant programs are meant to encourage. Last year, we found that nearly 4 in 10 charters that received federal money meant to grow high-quality Ohio charters went to schools that closed shortly after receiving the grant or never opened at all.
Imagine if quality wasn't even considered because the new Education Secretary didn't know how to measure it? Well, we may find out soon enough.
I've written about this before -- the idea of whether the Ohio Constitution permits charter and joint vocational schools to receive any casino money, especially given the casino provision's specific mention of public school "districts". My concerns remain. (By the way, whenever anyone criticizes me or anyone else for comparing charter schools with school districts, I give you the interpretation that charters are to be considered school districts for the purposes of casino revenue distribution.)
However, I wonder if more people will take the argument seriously now that charters get more per pupil funding from casinos than local public school districts. Last year was the first time that happened.
According to Ohio Department of Taxation data, charter school kids received $51.33, on average, from casino revenue. Local school district children received $50.89.
Now, the difference isn't that great. However, it is there.
I know for a fact that not a single person who voted for the casino issue voted to send more per pupil money to the notorious Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) than all but 2 Ohio school districts (Piqua and Bradford). Or that more than 1 in 10 charters now receive more per pupil funding from casino revenue than ANY Ohio school district. Or that only 89 percent of state casino money meant for "public school districts" under the Ohio Constitution actually go to public school districts.
As lawmakers return to handle what Gov. John Kasich has called a looming recession here, I would think one way they could address at least a little bit of the school funding issue is to re-examine whether charter schools should be receiving more per pupil funding from Ohio casinos than the school districts whose good reputations helped get the measure passed.
And this is one more area of concern with Betsy DeVos being nominated as the U.S. Secretary of Education. Her steadfast belief that charters and vouchers are better options than local public schools would seem to signal that she's perfectly fine with charters getting more per pupil money from Ohio casinos than local districts. Not sure many middle class Ohioans who voted for her boss would agree.
It seems like I write this every year when the Education Week Quality Counts report comes out. There's Ohio, right in the middle of the national rankings. Again. Yawn.
This year, we rated 22nd overall. Last year, 23rd.
It wasn't always this way. In 2010, we ranked 5th best education system in the country.
Then in 2011, we had an historic, $1.8 billion funding cut to education -- a cut that hasn't been replaced in many parts of the state, even now, despite the state spending about $10 billion more overall than it spent in 2010.
But I digress.
Once again, though, the rankings demonstrate just how close Ohio came to being a national education leader rather than a laggard. In 2010, we had the Evidence Based Model of school funding -- a system that for the first time promised to reduce the state's reliance on property taxes -- the key to the state's constitutional mandate. In fact, 2010 has been the only time on record that more state than local money paid for public education. The model and other education reforms won the state the prestigious Frank Newman Award from the bipartisan Education Commission of the States, which is awarded every year to the nation's most "bold, courageous" education policy reforms of the year.
However, Gov. Kasich eliminated the EBM as one of his first acts. Since then, Ohio's rankings have plummeted.
There was one state that kept its version of the EBM. Wyoming. In 2010, that state ranked 34th nationally. Today? It's 7th. And it's the only state in the country to receive an A (A-) in school finance.
