« Paul Tough's article | Main | Choosing Better Schools (Malkin Dare) »
November 30, 2006
Education finance
This is quite timely, given this week's debate on school financing. Due to a combined projection of lower enrollment and increased tax revenue, California schools expect to get an extra $6 billion over the next five years. Of course, various groups are lining up for a piece of the pie, "promoting ideas like improving high schools, paying teachers more, and helping urban districts with severely declining enrollment" (full story here). The Orange County Register is a bit perturbed at all this:
We're not sure how paying teachers more across the board will fix the state's broken school system, but as the article said, "interest groups are already lining up to get their share." Notice also how the article pointed to demands for more money for districts with declining enrollments. Silly us, we thought that districts with increasing enrollment ought to get more money, not those that serve fewer and fewer students each year.
This helps illustrate a rather large disconnect between the California education system and the reality in which schools operate. Presumably, if an organization or department has less work, it needs less resources to do the job. Not so in the Golden State, where schools will get more money to do less work. But some schools will have increasing enrollment, which is why interest groups want schools with decreasing enrollments to get more money.
The Register asks if, in light of this extra funding, we can expect the state to institute some meaningful reform. Given this comment, I'm skeptical:
"The emphasis on reform and change should be significant," said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland. "We don't want to use all this money to maintain the status quo. But it is hard because everyone has a vested interest."
In a refreshing move for a newspaper, the Register calls for greater educational choice in the form of public charter schools and vouchers; as you might imagine, I agree that parents should have a say. But let's set aside school choice for a second. I have two questions for establishment types, particularly the unions.
- Of paramount importance to the education system is increased funding. Based on this article, this year California is spending $41 billion (44 percent of the state's general fund) to educate 6 million students. Since that is presumably insufficient, how much money would it take? Give me a specific dollar amount.
- If you had that sum to work with, would it be fair--equitable--to expect every kid in the state to receive an adequate education? I'm not asking for a first-rate, excellent education, but one every kid can be expected to graduate from high school with a C average. If not, why not?
The comment thread is open.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.edspresso.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/936
