Study Shows Costs of a Basic Education are More
Than Tennessee Bargained For
The Coalition for Tennessee’s Future recently
released a costing-out study performed by Augenblick,
Palaich, and Associates (APA) entitled “Calculation
of the Cost of an Adequate Education in Tennessee in
2001-02 Using the Professional Judgment Approach and
the Successful School District Approach.” The
study combines the two most widely used methods of costing
out to determine the cost of adequacy in school districts
of varying size, as well as in the state as a whole.
After analyzing their conclusions, the researchers assert
that education spending in Tennessee during the 2002-03
school year was $1.109 billion less than the spending
necessary to ensure adequacy.
The study was performed over six months, and did not
consider costs associated with capital expenses, student
transportation, or food services, which is typical of
education costing-out studies. The Coalition for Tennessee’s
Future, which commissioned the study, is an umbrella
organization that unites educational groups such as
the Tennessee
Education Association and the Tennessee
School Boards Association towards a common goal
of adequate funding for Tennessee’s schools. As
reported in The Tennessean, the group united
because, though supportive of the equalizing effects
of the Basic Education Program, Tennessee’s school
funding system since 1992, they felt the funding provided
to school districts was insufficient to ensure a high
quality education. Additionally, the BEP mandates specific
items in school district budgets, while the funding
proposed by the Coalition for Tennessee’s Future
would be awarded to districts as a block grant.
The cost study’s Successful
School Districts method considered those districts
that met 28 or more of 33 academic criteria, ultimately
analyzing the basic spending of only 8 school districts
during the 2001-2002 school year. The per-student spending
for those districts averaged $4,949, with no figures
available for specific expenditures related to special
needs, including those of special education or low-income
students, or English language learners.
The Professional
Judgment portion of the study charged panels of
experts on education and finance with determining the
costs necessary to allow prototype school districts
to meet “state and federal standards.” APA
used several panels to contribute to their evaluation,
including panels that focused on school-level, district-level,
and state-level expenditures. Of these panels, each
was charged with determining necessary funds for prototype
school districts of different sizes, as district size
varies widely across Tennessee. The panels determined
both a base per-student cost of $6,200 and a series
of adjustments that would allow the extra cost of special-needs
students to be calculated.
In a separate analysis and report, issued in October
of 2004, APA equates the $6,200 base per-student cost
of education in Tennessee with the cost of achieving
the goals of the federal “No Child Left Behind”
Act (NCLB), which requires 100 percent student proficiency
by the 2013-2014 school year. Other school funding experts
have said it is virtually impossible to cost out 100
percent proficiency, which is itself a virtually impossible
goal.
In order to reconcile these variant figures, APA proposes
in their 2004 report that the state adopt a funding
system that would gradually increase spending levels
from the Successful School Districts level of $4,949
per student to the Professional Judgment level of $6,200
per student (adjusted for inflation) between 2005-06
and 2013-2014, when NCLB says 100 percent proficiency
will be required. Though politically viable, a system
that phases in funding at this rate seems unlikely to
enable schools to achieve this level of proficiency
the very first year they are provided with adequate
funding.
APA also suggests a system for funding that would utilize
a “second tier” of state funding to enable
lower-wealth districts to match above-base spending
by wealthier districts. This model would also expect
that funding be adjusted for special-needs students
according to the ratios proposed by the Professional
Judgment panel.
This study illustrates the growing trend towards attempting
to incorporate the costs of NCLB into the calculation
of total education costs. Other studies that have tried
to incorporate NCLB costs have been performed in Ohio
and Texas.
Prepared by Nelly Ward, November 10, 2004
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