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| School Zone blog: Seven myths about K-12 school financing in Michigan; By Julie Mack | Kalamazoo Gazette 6-27-2011 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 29 2011, 10:37 PM (210 Views) | |
| Administrator | Jun 29 2011, 10:37 PM Post #1 |
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School Zone blog: Seven myths about K-12 school financing in Michigan http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/school_zone_blog_five_myths_ab.html Published: Monday, June 27, 2011, 4:05 PM By Julie Mack | Kalamazoo Gazette Last week, I heard from several people who took umbrage at something I had written about school finances. In one case, a caller wanted me to investigate the "funny business" in Portage Public Schols -- i.e, the fact that they're cutting jobs at the same time they're spending money on building projects. In the other case, several e-mailers questioned my statement that Michigan schools spent an average of $9,600 per student in 2009-10, pointing out that most schools received a foundation allowance of about $7,316 that year. In fact, Michigan school funding "can be more complicated than Carter has pills," an online commenter ruefully wrote in a comment post Sunday. So here's seven common myths about K-12 funding: 1. The per-student foundation allowance is what Michigan spends on K-12 schools. The per student allowance, which is about $6,850 per student for 2011-12, is most but not all of schools' operation budget. For the average district, the foundation allowance is roughly 80 percent of revenues, with the remainder coming from a mix of local, state and federal sources. For instance, every intermediate school district in Michigan levies a special-education tax that helps subsidize special education costs, and a majority of ISDs levy a vocational education tax. 2. A sign of schools' fiscal irresponsibility is the money they spend on building projects even as they are laying off staff. There's two distinct funding streams for capital and operational expenses for schools, which explains why a district such as Portage is spending millions on new construction even as it cuts its operational budget. When voters approve money for bond issues or sinking funds, use of that money is strictly limited to capital expenses and can't be used for operations. 3. Funding for Michigan K-12 schools has been cut by millions over the past decade. It is true that Michigan schools have been in a budget-cutting mode for most of the decade. However, before this upcoming school year, the general issue has been more about expenses increasing faster than inflation and the fiscal pressure created by declining enrollment. In fiscal 2001, Michigan schools spent an average of $7,384 per student on operations, according to the state Department of Education. In fiscal 2010, that average was $9,633, an increase of 30 percent. The minimum foundation allowance went from $6,000 to $7,316 during that time, up 22 percent. Still, most school districts talked every year about budget-cutting. Here's why: -- Declining enrollment. Michigan had about 10 percent fewer public K-12 students in fiscal 2001 compared to fiscal 2010. That's good for the state budget, but bad for school districts who have lost money as their student population drops. -- Several cost areas -- particularly insurance, retirement and energy bills -- have increased faster than the inflation rate, which was 23 percent over the decade, or the rate of revenue increases. That has forced districts to cut back in some areas while spending more in others, or to lower expenses by reducing staff. -- The funding has been stagnated in the past few years, and it's has been bolstered by one-time stimulus money that is now going away. The last five years have been much more pinched than the first half of the decade. For 2011-12, there's been a genuine decrease in K-12 revenues: The state is losing about $270 million in stimulus funds and about $400 million is being diverted from the School Aid Fund to higher education. The bottom line: The minimum foundation allowance is dropping from $7,316 per student to $6,846 although most districts will qualify for an additional $200 per student. 4. School consolidation could save hundreds of millions. There's no evidence for that. It is true that Michigan has a large number of small school districts -- about half of the 35 school districts in the Kalamazoo area, for instance, have fewer than 1,500 students. And it's true that smaller districts, especially those with fewer than 1,500 students, are fiscally inefficient. But the schools offset that fiscal inefficiency by paying lower salaries and having fewer programs than larger districts; it's the staff and students that suffer the results, not the taxpayers. Likewise, if schools were to consolidate, it's reasonable to expect that the savings would be offset by increases in salaries and programs. 5. Michigan could save money by going to a voucher system. Here's one thing that voucher advocates typically ignore: About 7 percent of Michigan students already attend private schools, and it would be only fair to include them in a voucher program. In theory, then, a voucher system would potentially raise, not lower costs. 6. Academic outcomes are directly related to the level of school funding. Nope. Money does make a big difference in quality of facilities, employee compensation, range of programs and extracurriculars, whether the track team will get new uniforms next year. It's also true that funding in a few key areas -- such as preschool -- can make a difference in outcomes. Here's a recent column on that subject. 7. Because Michigan has a state-funded school system, most school districts have similar budgets issues. While some broad generalizations can be made, the budget challenges faced by Kalamazoo Public Schools are different than those, say, in Portage, Comstock or Climax-Scotts. Among the factors that differentiate districts: Not everybody gets the same foundation allowance, and there's also considerable variation in funding from the feds or their ISD. Size of the district makes a difference, as does sociodemographics of the student population, and whether the district's enrollment is growing, declining or stable. A perfect example of this is Michigan's average teacher salary, which was about $62,000 in 2009-10. There are a few districts in the Detroit area where it's possible for a teacher to make more than $100,000 a year; there are other districts in this area where salaries for teachers top out at less than $50,000. 8. The United States has increased K-12 spending considerably in the past few decades and schools have gotten worse. The first part is true: In inflation-adjusted dollars, per-student operating expenditures on K-12 education increased 33 percent between 1989-90 and 2007-08, according to the U.S. Department of Education. But it's wrong to say that schools have gotten worse over that time. By virtually every measure -- test scores, graduation rates, number of students going onto college, college graduation rates -- academic outcomes have improved. The problem is those improvements have been relatively small at a time when the global economy is requiring a dramatic upswing in the number of people who graduate high school and receive post-secondary training. Julie Mack is a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at jmack@kalamazoogazette.com or 269-388-8578, or follow her on Twitter.com at Twitter.com/kzjuliemack. She also writes a blog called School Zone at http://blog.mlive.com/schoolzone. http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/school_zone_blog_five_myths_ab.html |
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