Finance reform aims to build world-class schools
By Paula Noonan 
| July 30, 2009 | 8:01 AM
Colorado is running a full-court press to compete for the Obama administration’s Race to the Top money for education reform. Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien says the state is well positioned for a win.
At the same time, the Colorado legislature, through its interim School Finance Committee, is trying to figure out a long-term funding strategy for public schools. The current school-finance formula focuses on equity and adequacy. The state provides extra money to low-property-tax districts to “equalize” funding with high-property-tax districts.
The question remains: Is any of the funding adequate to achieve a “world class” public education system?
Race to the Top gives short-term grants
Race to the Top money would provide short-term grants for teacher professional development, teacher pay, assessment, standards and struggling schools.
State uses ‘categoricals’ for special-needs funds
State funding struggles with long-term issues such as “categorical grants” for special education, vocational education, gifted and talented programs, transportation, expelled and at-risk students, and English language proficiency. The current school finance bill, SB09-256, provides $230 million-plus in categorical funding for 2009-2010.
The interim School Finance Committee wants to know whether funding through categoricals meets the learning needs of kids.
Colorado just gets by ‘on the cheap’
According to Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver and co-founder of the nonprofit Great Education Colorado, Colorado gets by “on the cheap” for education funding because of its large middle- to upper-middle-class population. Middle-class kids are more likely to be “prepared for school” and have lots of resources at home. This advantage helps kids learn, despite the state’s near-bottom-of-the-nation funding for public schools. And it allows the state to rank “average” in school performance across the nation.
But this hurts kids in poorer homes who don’t have the same learning edge.
Poor kids struggle, unprepared for school
More than 65,000 Colorado kids under 5 years old live in extreme poverty, according to the Colorado Children’s Campaign. This number is growing faster than the national average. Eventually these children, and many other poor kids, end up in the state’s dropout statistics.
Many public school districts use free and reduced lunch as a “proxy” or predictor for at-risk kids. Dr. Alex Medler of the Children’s Campaign acknowledges that poverty is the largest umbrella indicator for at-risk kids. But more precise indicators exist that should affect school funding and education reform.
One or more F’s in ninth grade leads to 90 percent dropout rate
If a ninth-grade student has one or more F’s on a semester report card, there’s a nine in 10 chance the child will drop out. Similarly, if a high school kid has 20 or more absences in a quarter, the child is at least 60 percent more likely to drop out. Fifty percent of dropouts have had at least one suspension in four years.
The School Finance Committee, concerned about dropout levels and struggling or underperforming schools, is looking at a student-centered funding system as a possible replacement for the current method.
Student-centered funding “drives funds to schools, with additional weights for school-based decisions.” (See CEPA paper on Student Based Funding)
A goal of student-centered funding is to give local schools more flexibility in dealing with diverse student populations. The system also can more closely connect budgeting with standards and assessment, providing more accountability.
Of course, any school-finance change begs the question of reform if it ends up that not enough money is in the system to begin with.
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