Wednesday, September 15, 1999
Ohio seeks new school-funding plan
State still defends current formula
BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS — As Ohio defends its new school-funding system in court, the state's top educator is paying consultants $316,500 to come up with alternatives.
Less than two years after the state tried to define the cost of an adequate education, Susan Tave Zelman, Ohio's superintendent of public instruction, said it already may be time to change the way money is raised for and distributed to schools.
State lawmakers overhauled the system under orders from the Ohio Supreme Court. But critics say the General Assembly failed to consider everything children need to know when it crafted a new way to pay for their education.
“A lot of people are telling me that was a missed opportunity,” Dr. Zelman said in an interview with The Cincinnati Enquirer. “I want to take care of this. I don't want school funding to become Ohio's Vietnam.”
With approval from the Ohio State Board of Education, Dr. Zelman has hired five researchers from Cleveland State Uni versity, Indiana University and Pennsylvania State University to recommend other options. One of the experts is crisscrossing the state asking legislators, teachers, administrators and community leaders for advice.
The group is to present its plan early next year, around the same time the Ohio Supreme Court is expected to decide whether the General Assembly fixed the school-funding system.
Legislative leaders fear the latest panel of experts will undermine the state's defense of the current system.
“While the issue is pending before the court, I think this is a waste of money,” said Senate Minority Leader Ben Espy, D-Columbus. “We debated for a year and agreed on the formula we have in place now.”
Although Dr. Zelman described the researchers' work as part of the Ohio Department of Education's routine budget preparations, two contracts obtained by the Enquirer suggest the scope of their mission is more sweeping.
According to the contracts, researchers at the three universities are to outline potential sources of funding for schools, determine the base cost of a child's education and consider other factors such as special education, transportation, gift ed programs and adjustments for low-income students.
The experts also will help a yet-to-be-named blue-ribbon panel sell the plan to the public.
“Is the current system outdated? I don't know,” said Dr. Zelman, who took office in March after serving as a top education official in Missouri. “We don't even know how the current system is working.”
Her comments differ sharply from the legal brief filed by the state last month in defense of the current system. Attorney General Betty Montgomery is paying a former top aide, Jeff Sutton, $125 an hour to argue the case.
“It is difficult to imagine that the legislature could have done more to develop an objective benchmark for funding public schools in Ohio,” Mr. Sutton wrote in the state's brief. “This method is rational, complies with the court's decision and deserves a chance to succeed.”
Added Chris Davey, the attorney general's spokesman: “Just because you are working to improve a system doesn't mean the current one is inadequate.”
If Dr. Zelman's idea sounds familiar, it's because dozens of similar panels have recommended changes in the funding formula during the past two decades. Most of those sugges tions are collecting dust after lawmakers rejected them for political reasons.
One that survived is the plan crafted by John Augenblick, a Denver-based consultant who helped fashion Kentucky's education reforms.
Lawmakers last year adopted a revised version of Mr. Augenblick's plan, which determined the cost of an adequate education by averaging proficiency test scores, attendance rates and dropout rates in 103 of the state's top school districts.
His plan assumed that if all 611 school districts spend the average amount per student those districts did, they would produce the same results.
In its 1997 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ordered lawmakers reduce the state's reliance on local property taxes to fund schools, a tradition that created vast funding disparities between property rich and poor districts.
The state will guarantee each district spends at least $4,052 per student this year and $4,294 next year. Some property-rich schools spend more than $12,000 a year per student.
Warren Russell, a school finance expert and lobbyist for the Ohio School Boards Association, said Mr. Augenblick's plan was flawed because it failed consider everything the state expects students to know.
For instance, the 18 performance criteria Mr. Augenblick used to determine what an adequate education costs did not include science exams now required in fourth, sixth, ninth, and 12th grades. Science tends to be one of the most difficult tests, so the results could end up driving up the cost.
As one of the perennial figures in the debate over how to pay for schools, Mr. Russell was interviewed by attorneys last year as the school-funding case was pending before Judge Linton D. Lewis Jr. of Perry County Common Pleas Court.
Mr. Russell shared the same opinions recently with Neal Theobald, an Indiana University researcher hired by the Education Department to recommend changes in the funding formula.
“My views haven't changed,” Mr. Russell said. “I don't think the state has complied with the court decision.”
Judge Lewis ordered the state earlier this year to try again to fix the system, but the Ohio Supreme Court stayed his decision while the state appeals.
On the same day the state Board of Education approved Dr. Zelman's request for another review of the funding formula, the board voted to support the state's appeal of Judge Lewis' ruling.
William Phillis, leader of the coalition of schools that successfully sued the state, said competing views of the situation may stem from the fact that Dr. Zelman answers to the board, not the governor or General Assembly.
“If they really believed in their system, they wouldn't have to hire five consultants to revise the system they're defending,” said Mr. Phillis, executive director of the Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding. “It sounds like they know they're going to lose.”
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