Statement by Comm. Gist on the funding formula, translated

By John McDaid | Saturday, 12 June 2010

The flacks at RIDE moved a statement from the Commissioner yesterday afternoon, responding to Thursday night's passage of the education funding bill by the general assembly. Fisking is rarely the first club out of the bag for me, but in this case, I thought a bit of an interlinear translation might be in order...

N E W S R E L E A S E
Statement from Commissioner Gist on the new funding formula for aid to education:

 Wonder if she sent this to Time Magazine...
The funding formula that the General Assembly approved last night (June 10, 2010) will meet the needs of Rhode Island students. Because it takes into account student need and district capacity, it will be fair to all school systems. It will provide adequate funding to educate all students in our state.

At $3,000 less than any school district actually pays to put kids in a classroom, the $8,295 foundation amount will not, res ipsa loquitur, meet the needs of our students, and that's before they apply the magic formula to reduce this (by 87%, in Portsmouth's case).

And for districts — like, say, Portsmouth — which are operating efficiently yet stand to lose $2.07M, this is not fair, nor is it adequate. Fair does not just mean fair to some, nor fair to a different set of winners and punishing those who were allegedly overfunded. Fair means fair to all.
Supporting student achievement is our highest priority. A transparent, consistent education funding formula will allow us to ensure that student achievement remains the top priority for our state and for every school district.

Because RIDE started with a revenue-neutral approach, it could not, by definition, make student achievement the top priority. And if achievement is important for *all* students, the blunt instrument of a 40% Free and Reduce Price Lunch multiplier is deeply suspect. Is it RIDE's position that ALL English Language Learners are on reduced price lunch? Really?

As someone who took the time to figure out how the quadratic mean actually works, let me just say that if this formula is what passes for transparency, I might resubmit my application to join the PCC.
The new funding formula allocates resources fairly. It includes an innovative transition plan so that local districts have time to adjust to the revised distribution of funds. It will phase in the changes in funding allocations over 10 years.

In case you didn't hear us two paragraphs up where we said this is fair, we're going to say it again. HEY YOU WHINERS IN THE EAST BAY! THIS IS FAIR!

For communities like Portsmouth, it doesn't matter how long you take to cut $2.1M from our schools; you're still driving them into deficit. That's like telling someone, hey, I'm going to chop off your hand really slowly so you have time to adjust.

I wonder if the Commissioner remembers when she came to Rep. Amy Rice's regionalization commission meeting and promised to support any changes to S3050 that were needed to help districts cope with funding cuts. What happened to that promise? There wasn't any 3050 relief in the bill, and the sponsor, Rep. Costantino, spoke against Rice's attempted amendment on the floor. So did Costantino double cross Gist, or did the Commissioner just not have enough juice to make this happen?

And a word about bragging. It's perfectly okay for someone *else* to call your transition plan innovative, but personally, I'd be careful about using this word self-referentially, unless you're writing a résumé. Uh, this isn't a résumé, is it?

N.B. Taking the Ajello plan and stretching the timeline is an incremental improvement, not an innovation.
This funding formula is based on the principle that the money will follow the student. It is a dynamic system that will redistribute allocations as enrollment patterns change. We are confident that this funding formula will take us from being the only state without a funding formula to being the state with the best funding formula in the country. I am very pleased that the General Assembly has taken this historic step, which will help us to invest our education resources wisely and to transform education in Rhode Island.

This talking point about money following the student is the Big Lie. Let's take a student in Providence where the state is picking up 85% of the "cost" or $7,050. Now, let's assume this student's family moves to Portsmouth, where the state contributes 13% or $1,078. Tell me, Commissioner, exactly *how* is the money is following the student?
- Deborah A. Gist, Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education

Gotta hand it to the Commissioner for a press release like this. That last paragraph? Wow. Big brass ones.
Tags: 
Localblogging, 02871, Schools, Budget, funding formula

Comments

AmyS

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 7:59pm

If the foundation amount followed the student, an additional student would raise a district’s state aid by $8,295, with an additional 40% increase in aid ($3,318) if the child is eligible for free or reduced price lunch (FRPL). Under the RIDE formula, some money does indeed follow the student. However, it is neither the foundation amount nor the amount suggested in the post. When students move from district to district, it changes not only the total foundation calculation, but also the state share ratio. To find the resulting change in state aid, both factors must be considered.

The amount of money that follows the student varies by district. If a non-FRPL-eligible student moves from another district into Portsmouth, Portsmouth’s state aid would increase by about $5,600. If that student moved instead to Providence, Providence’s aid would increase by $7,900. If the student moved to Newport, aid would increase by $3,600. If he or she moved to Barrington, aid would rise by $5,900.

If the student is eligible for FRPL, then the additional amount of state aid depends upon the student’s grade level. If the child is in grade 7 or above, he or she would bring an additional $500 in aid to Portsmouth, $2,900 to Providence, $1,500 to Newport, and $800 to Barrington. These amounts are in addition to the basic aid for a non-FRPL student.

If instead the child is in grades PK-6, then that student would increase the measured concentration of poverty in the quadratic mean part of the aid formula. The resulting change in state aid would be significantly larger. An additional student in this category would increase state aid by an extra $5,900 in Portsmouth, $12,700 in Providence, $14,300 in Newport, and $2,200 in Barrington. Again, these amounts are in addition to the extra state aid for a non-FRPL student. So the student would raise the total amount of state aid going to Portsmouth by $11,500, to Providence by $20,600, to Newport by $17,900, and to Barrington by $8,100.

These aid amounts also apply when a student moves out of a district. Some districts would lose a lot of funding, while others would lose much less.

So although your numbers are not correct, you are right to assert that there is a large variance in the amount across districts. If Rhode Island had continued without an aid formula, however, changes in enrollment would be associated with no change in state aid at all. While the new formula is a step in the right direction, there is clearly room for improvement.

John McDaid

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 6:18am

Hi, Amy...
Thanks for reminding me of the need to roll the student into the overall aid equation. You're right that the number would be larger than just the base percentage, however, using the formula, I get $5,398 for a scenario adding one additional non-FRPL student, which would bring total state aid to 2,974,384 (spreadsheet).

True, the marginal contribution for each student is more than I said. However, my larger point is the insufficiency of the funding in the overall formula. I know there are many ways to look at these numbers, but here's a simple non-quadratic approach that anyone can understand. If you take the state contribution to Portsmouth under the formula, $2.9M and divide it by the number of students, 2,657, you get $1,117.

We're still paying $11,299 to educate that student.

Best,
-j

AmyS

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 9:20am

Hi John,
Our numbers are a bit off because I’m using the enacted formula, which tweaks the EWAV ratio part of the equation. The change raises the amount of aid districts receive relative to RIDE’s original proposal. Using either formula, I think the numbers are startling. The variance across districts is still very large.

I’m curious. Are you advocating for the state to give the same amount of aid per student to all districts regardless of their fiscal capacity?

By the way, I agree with you about S3050. The problems it creates during the transition period should have been obvious to legislators. Even worse, the problems will remain after the transition period is over, because the two policies are based upon contradictory assumptions about districts' ability to raise revenue. The education aid formula is based on the premise that districts with property values that rise over time (relative to the state average) can afford to pay for a larger share of their educational expenses. The assumption is that higher property values enable the community to raise more property tax revenue. S3050, on the other hand, caps the district’s ability to generate additional revenue, regardless of any changes in property values.

Unless the constraints of S3050 are coordinated with the education aid formula, the two policies together imply that districts with growing property values must reduce their educational spending over time.
Amy

John McDaid

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 10:00am

Hi, Amy...
I couldn't agree more on 3050. It is incomprehensible to me that communities experiencing growth in their tax base cannot use that to provide additional revenue to the schools, but must instead use it to reduce the tax rate. I'm hopeful that in the next session the legislature will attempt to better reconcile these two conflicting constraints.

And I do not believe that the state should be giving all districts the same amount; I absolutely believe that there should be a fair, transparent formula that determines the local contribution. But I disagree with RIDE's ingoing assumption that the current state spend is adequate.

Best Regards.
-j