Saturday, May 20, 2000
School funding is one hot potato
For nearly 30 years — since California's Serrano vs. Priest in 1971 — state supreme courts have been reviewing and ruling on how states fund schools.
Often, the process has been contentious and untidy, with years of litigation, revolving trips back to court and stutter-steps of progress by state legislatures. Indeed, funding has become “the Holy Grail of educational policy,” says Michael Griffith, a policy analyst for the Education Commission of the States, which advises legislators and other groups on educational policy-making.
The problem is that the things the courts, public and politicians want — a funding system that is adequate, equitable, fair to taxpayers, locally responsive and politically survivable — “are very hard to match up,” Mr. Griffith says.
Ohio is in the thick of the fight right now. Perry County judge Linton D. Lewis Jr. ruled the state's funding system unconstitutional in 1994. The state Supreme Court upheld his decision in 1997 and reaffirmed that ruling last week, citing in large part overreliance on local property taxes.
Everybody's looking for an answer, preferably painless and quick. Proponents of a total overhaul in school funding cite bold plans and partial success stories in other states. In truth, while those plans have settled some issues, they have stirred up others.
In Michigan, often offered as a model for its sharp reduction in reliance on local property taxes, school districts are waging losing campaigns for new school buildings and other capital improvements — increases still tied to local taxation.
As more tax revenues go to Michigan's low-income districts, “well-off districts are really beginning to suffer,” says Mr. Griffith of the Education Commission of the States, who has closely observed both Ohio and Michigan funding cases. “They're cutting programs, laying off teachers and especially cutting things like sports and the arts.”
Even with their state's bold changes, many Michigan legislators admit thatreal equity among school districts will take decades.
Progress in school funding is clearly not for the impatient, nor the faint-hearted. But contentious and imprecise as the process has been, it has also carried genuine benefit. It has forced legislators, educators and the public into conversations about how schools are funded and how they are run.
First, states have been forced to articulate the components of an adequate, thorough or efficient education. This is no mere exercise in semantics. In the past, schools have concentrated on what they poured into children. Now they are focusing on what they expect to come out of them. Many state supreme courts have praised the Kentucky Supreme Court's definition, which encompasses communication skills, knowledge of government and the arts, and self-awareness.
Second, the lawsuits kick up discussions that should have been going on for years: the state's role in supporting education; local communities' appropriate roles in funding schools; the ties between school finance and school reform.
Finally, the lawsuits have given poor children and poor school districts the one thing they've needed: A watchdog in the courts. If the schools had to wait for state legislators or residents to act on conscience, they'd be waiting around for years.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202, or e-mail her at krista_ramsey@hotmail.com.
Colon cancer vaccine ready to test
Student graduates in hospital
Again: A fatal crash and a stricken school
Taft signs ban on some late-term abortions
'Average Joe' robs Clermont bank
Fairfield official indicted on fraud
Findlay project gets $250,000 gift
Petition dispute a lesson in civics
RAMSEY: School funding is one hot potato
Slain police officers honored at memorial service
'Son of Beast' closed for third weekend
TV ads called loophole
Ky. to see Bush, Gore often
N.Ky. primary is one-office race
Other candidates on ballot, like it or not
Appeal rejected in Officer Partin's death
Newport looks at race book
Schools look for new chief
Schools to move off tainted site
Cancer report led to probe
Get to it
May Festival gets off to glorious start
Pig Parade: Sow's It Goin' . . . Cincinnati!
Suspect in fatal DUI returns to Mexico
Teen faces weapons charge
Teen held on suspicion of poisoning drinks
Tristate Digest
Around the Commonwealth
Covington teachers get raises
Dozens charged after wild party
Fairfield schools hire new athletic director
Girl, 14, suspended for threatening letter
Man guilty of raping girl, 11
Middletown will survey residents about parks
Mission: To bring Hamilton business
Orchestra listens to critics of new name
OSU strike appears ended
Phys ed shunted aside in curriculum changes
S. Lebanon man pleads guilty in Jan. shooting
School digs up the past
Senate hopeful wants divorce of religion, politics
Sibling bus drivers retiring
Slaying still juvenile case, Wehrung lawyers say
Software maker heads to Deerfield
