School funding rules thwart attempts to ‘bend the pipe’
By Paula Noonan 
| September 11, 2009 | 8:01 AM
The traditional school pipeline, with children starting at kindergarten and ending with high school or college graduation, has leaks, according to Gordon Freedman of the Blackboard Institute. However, repairing the leaks won’t work, he asserted at a session with the legislature’s School Finance Interim Committee recently.
Educators need a new model to replace the manufacturing template of the 20th century, Freedman said. Educators need to “bend the pipe,” or think in terms of the New England roundabout, with roads funneling on and off a circle, to describe the 21st century education model, he said.
The Blackboard Institute is the research arm of the online education delivery platform company Blackboard. With more than a decade of experience in providing online education, Blackboard is now exploring with universities and k-12 educators how to make learning delivery more nimble, flexible and student-centered.
State legislators are looking for ways to make education dollars stretch while improving student outcomes. The challenge is straightforward but complex. Students are technologically savvy and less willing to sit in seats to take instruction. Technology makes non-building-centered education possible.
At the same time, the interim committee discussed the more commonplace issue of student count dates and times. In general, the number of students funded by the state per district is decided by the October 1 student count, which depends on how many students are sitting in their seats on that date.
According to Ranelle Lang, superintendent of Weld County School District 6, the count system is time-consuming and expensive. The student count is also squishy, as students move in and out of school, transfer schools and drop out.
Sandy Rotella, assistant superintendent of finance and operations at Adams County School District 50, said a student plus seat time equals money, which limits school districts in how they can be creative to meet students’ needs.
The interim committee was left to ponder how to “bend the pipe” when school funding depends greatly on keeping kids sitting at their desks in their school building, at least on October 1.
Paula Noonan is with Colorado Capitol Watch.
education, finance, online school
