Education Funding

Does anyone really know how much we spend on our public schools? A state-finance map on per-pupil spending from Education Week shows Washington State, where we are based, spends $11,125 per student, accounting for “factors such as teacher and staff salaries, classroom spending, and administration, but not construction or other capital spending.” Confusing! The frustrating issue with this report is it creates controversies about which state “could” be spending more in comparison to other states, which does not matter as much as the actual spending figures importantly, the figure seems to only include the state revenue portion (of course, this is not highlighted in the report). What is missing is the significant portion of school funding from local levies, federal Read More ›

The 2019 legislature missed out on a big opportunity this year. Instead of working to reform how our schools operate, the legislature took a step backwards by undoing much of the good work that was done in response to the McCleary court ruling just two years ago. In 2017, Democrats and Republicans approved a bi-partisan school funding bill, reforming state and local property taxes to ensure that the state met its constitutional obligation to fully fund K-12 education.  The law reduced inequities by capping local property taxes, so wealthy areas would not have an imbalanced benefit, by providing equitable state funding to all schools on a per-student basis. All parties, including Governor Inslee, lauded and moved forward with the agreement. Read More ›

As reported in Education Week, two states recognized as targets for educational transformation by Discovery Institute’s American Center for Transforming Education (ACTE) are in it for the long haul. Idaho and Texas recently battled to revamp their K-12 funding formulas during their respective legislative sessions. The changes are promising, even if some questions remain about the future. The discussions over funding formulas are greatly needed. As the article points out, “Virtually every legislator gets involved with school funding formula debates since they each have vocal constituents at risk of gaining or losing state aid. And anti-tax advocates, parents, and teachers—groups with get-out-the-vote prowess—are among those at the forefront.” The bottom line is that how the schools will be funded impacts Read More ›

As reported by IdahoEdNews.org the Idaho state legislature has been grappling with vacating the 25-year-old education funding formula in Idaho. Originally crafted in the House by Representative Clow, the 59-page draft was an excellent starting point for changing the funding system. However, the House bill has effectively been killed due to the omission of a couple minor edits that some felt were necessary. Now the scene has shifted to the Senate. The two funding-formula bills have “a lot more commonality” than differences, Senator Mortimer stated when hearing the news about the House action taken. The bill introduced in the Senate would vacate the old funding model (an antiquated method of funding K-12 schools solely based on attendance or seat time) Read More ›

After dumping almost another $1 billion into funding for education, why do the local school districts in Washington State keep needing more money? House Bill 2242, passed in 2017, effectively ended the drawn out McCleary decision.  The bill authorized the state to raise local property taxes to increase school funding and called for a reduction of levy funding to make the funding for property-poor districts more equitable.  The property tax increase went into effect last year and the levy reduction goes into effect this year.  Thus, for one year, property-rich districts had a windfall of funding since they received the new property tax revenues and retained their levy funding. Knowing that districts had excess funds for one year, a number of new contracts were Read More ›