New policy brief examines the challenges of ensuring that education financing methods accurately reflect research on student achievement
Contact: Anthony Rolle -- (979) 862-3519; arolle@tamu.edu
Kevin Welner -- (303) 492-8370; kevin.welner@gmail.com
TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (July 14, 2008) -- Schools are the most important service provided by our states. In fact, we now spend more than half a trillion dollars each year on k-12 public education in the United States. And, unquestionably, our schools currently do accomplish a great deal. But decisions about how to spend money, how much, and on whom sometimes are made in far too arbitrary a fashion, concludes school finance expert Anthony Rolle in a new policy brief published jointly by the Education Policy Research Unit and the Education and the Public Interest Center.
In Strengthening the Link between Effective School Expenditures and State Funding Mechanisms, Professor Rolle of Texas A&M University explains ways that improving school finance formulas and resource usage can advance student achievement in accordance with up-to-date research on the most effective teaching and learning methods. The brief examines which spending categories improve academic quality and identifies obstacles that prevent the adoption, into state funding formulas, of research-based spending guidelines. It then recommends ways to strengthen the link between funding formulas, expense components, and desired academic outcomes.
"Especially when levels of much educational spending are decreasing even as costs for such new mandates as testing are increasing, school finance policy developers, administrators, and school communities need to continue asking what use of their limited resources will best serve students," Rolle writes.
The brief also addresses issues of equity and of the effective use of spending. Rolle outlines the standard approach to funding schools and observes that, to achieve equity, state legislatures typically adjust district-level financing to account for such circumstances as cost of living, special education needs, and the presence of at-risk students. Yet despite evidence on the value of such adjustments, state funding formulas are slow to include more than a few of effective, research-based adjustments.
In recent years, political contexts that led to less effective spending practices have been exacerbated by strained state resources caused by economic slowdowns, reduced tax rates, or both. The brief discusses how this failure is due to larger societal differences over "values, preferences, beliefs, perceptions of reality, and access to information." Rolle writes that "even in the face of increased litigation, state legislatures are slow to apply research findings and to revise school funding formulas and accountability systems in order to adequately provide for the basic needs of widely varying schools and districts. Too often, funding is not structured to ensure all students access to effective educational services."
The solution, Rolle contends, is for policymakers to "use reliable research findings that strongly suggest linkages between student achievement and school finance policies. Researchers can help empower policymakers to generate maximum benefit from their budgets by continuing to study possible relationships between finance and outcomes." He sets forth a series of practical, strategic steps policymakers might take in order to identify "the most appropriate way to achieve desired school quality and educational outcomes."
CONTACT:
Anthony Rolle, Ph.D., Associate Professor
College of Education and Human Development
Texas A&M University
(979) 862-3519
arolle@tamu.edu
Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@gmail.com
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The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder partners with the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University to produce policy briefs and think tank reviews. These centers provide a variety of audiences, both academic and public, with information, analysis, and insight to further democratic deliberation regarding educational policies.
Visit their website at http://educationanalysis.org
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