A tale out of Ohio highlights a frequent complaint in education: The unfunded mandate.
Lawmakers have the “best” idea – and if only districts would do it, everything would be great.
Funding? Districts don’t need money – just ideas. And mandates. Lots and lots of mandates.
This is the story of education a million times– some legislator gets a bright idea and declares “Let’s require schools to fix this” while waving vaguely in the direction of schools. And while this bright idea may require more resources and human-hours, that lawmaker will be confident that this whole new program can be implemented for free. Rick Hess has often said that you can force folks to do something, but you can’t force them to do it well. That is doubly true when you make zero effort to provide them with the resources needed to implement the program.
While leaders in some states are suing the Administration for release of the funds, Gov. Lee is not – and if the funds are not ultimately released, it could mean lost jobs and less programs for Tennessee kids most in need.
A spokesperson for Hamilton County Schools says they are at risk of losing $4.1 million that funds “several targeted services such as academic intervention (tutoring), teacher professional learning, and support for English learners.”
That’s what’s changed under Bill Lee’s approach to education
When Gov. Bill Lee came into office in 2018, Tennessee school funding system was broken.
The state lagged behind our neighbors in terms of support for schools by all measures. Billions in unfunded infrastructure needs. Teachers paid well below their peers in Southeastern states. Total investment in students ranked in the bottom 5 in the nation.
Bill Lee’s solution to all of this was to propose a school voucher scheme.
While it passed by a single vote in the House, the fallout is still being felt – one House Speaker lost his job over it. Staffers were indicted. And it seems the saga is not over.
No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.
Yep. That’s it.
The surprise is not that the majority agreed with the plain language. Rather, it’s surprising that these word could be read in such a way as to allow state money to flow to anything other than public schools in South Carolina.
This year, a Republican lawmaker joined the fight – sponsoring a bill similar to one Clemmons has carried in the past. Still, the bill was met with stiff resistance by legislators.
The national trend is toward schools providing meals for free for all kids.
The Tennessee trend is in favor of hundreds of millions of public dollars to fund a stadium for a private business owner and $1.6 billion for a corporate tax break.
Rather than fund school lunches, lawmakers and Gov. Lee seek annually to find new schemes that would use taxpayer money to fund unaccountable private schools.
For the past decade, the state has run budget surpluses in the range of $1-3 billion.
Rather than fund school lunches or boost teacher pay or invest in Medicaid expansion, or end the grocery tax, lawmakers have found a dizzying array of ways to reduce revenue by lowering or eliminating taxes paid by the wealthy or corporations.
The problem is so acute that Tennessee is in real danger of running a significant budget deficit in the 2025 fiscal year.
If Bill Lee ran his HVAC business this way, they’d be filing for bankruptcy.
This week, the district announced plans to move starting teacher pay to $50,000 and adjust the pay scale for all teachers accordingly.
Effectively, the plan moves every teacher up four spots on the pay scale.
This will mean raises of between $3000-$5000 for all teachers in the system.
Teacher pay matters. Investing in the people who have direct contact with students is a direct investment in student success.
When teachers get paid more, students do better. In one study, a 10% increase in teacher pay was estimated to produce a 5 to 10% increase in student performance. Teacher pay also has long-term benefits for students. A 10% increase in per-pupil spending for each of the 12 years of education results in students completing more education, having 7% higher wages, and having a reduced rate of adult poverty. These benefits are even greater for families who are in poverty.
Senate Democratic Caucus Chair London Lamar of Memphis says the GOP’s actions are “reckless and irresponsible” and instead is calling on state lawmakers to invest more funds in public schools.
“Our students need more support in the classroom, not less. Our students need more access to tutoring, counselors and mental health specialists, not less. Our students need regular meals and wrap-around support to be the best learners they can be.
“There’s no future success story for students, families or our economy if Tennessee continues down this dangerous, anti-student path.”
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Education blogger TC Weber joined the Tennessee Department of Education’s update to the State Board of Education on the state’s new funding formula (TISA). He filed this report with the Tennessee Star.
Here’s the part I found quite interesting:
Department data indicates that 648,000 students attend a school where 40 percent or more live in poverty.
That’s roughly 2/3 of all students.
The good news: The districts responsible for educating those students will receive a bump in funding under TISA.
The challenge: Tennessee has known about the high concentration of poverty for decades now.
It’s nice to see some bonus funding going to these districts (although BEP also had an input for poverty).
What’s not clear is what’s changing to address the systemic poverty that persists.
Tennessee policymakers could take action to address the challenges posed by entrenched poverty.
For example, the state could provide free breakfast and lunch to ALL students in the state for about $700 million.
Given that we continue to have annual budget surpluses topping $2 billion, this seems like an easy ask.
Feed all kids who come to school, no questions asked.
The state could also expand Medicaid to ensure that more families have access to healthcare.
In terms of education dollars, perhaps instead of investing $132 million in Pearson’s standardized tests, we could allocate those dollars to students in high poverty schools.
For the two thirds of students attending high poverty schools, the state must look like the banker from Monopoly – consistently collecting excess revenue while those students and their families have to wait for crumbs from the table.
Tennessee continues to find new ways to measure and assess the fact that our students face challenges from poverty and then consistently finds ways to offer solutions that do nothing to change that fact.
The State of Tennessee now has a court date to face allegations of inadequate school funding. The lawsuit, originally filed by school systems in Nashville and Memphis, has been joined by Tennessee School Systems for Equity, a group representing smaller systems around the state. The suit alleges that as it currently stands, the state’s school funding formula (BEP) does not provide sufficient funding for the operation of schools.
The outcome of the school funding trial could have major implications for K-12 education and, if successful, force Tennessee to invest significantly more money in public schools in a state that ranks 46th in the nation in student funding. Schools in lower-income areas and students who live in poverty, have disabilities, or are learning to speak English as a second language would be most affected.
It’s not clear how long the case will last or if the General Assembly will take any corrective action prior to the outcome. While the state has a significant surplus, Gov. Lee and the General Assembly have been reluctant to invest in schools.
The adequacy issue has been discussed for a number of years. Most recently, the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) has suggested the state underfunds schools by $1.7 billion.
How did we get such a large deficit? We have a funding formula that is not based in reality. That is, the formula fails to account for the staffing needs of schools.
The TACIR report, showing a gap of nearly 7000 teachers, comes on the heels of a Tennessee Department of Education report indicating a “teacher gap” of 9000.
Given the state’s huge budget surplus, lawmakers could choose to adequately fund schools without raising anyone’s taxes. So far, they’ve not made that choice.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
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A state organization tasked with providing research on the operations of state and local government has released a report suggesting Tennessee’s school funding formula, the BEP, needs at least $1.7 billion to adequately fund public education in the state. TACIR — The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations — released “K-12 Education Funding and Services.” Here are some notes:
* Report shows local governments spend at least $1.7 billion over BEP requirements.
* “Comparisons of BEP-funded to actual positions show that school systems often need to hire more staff than provided for by the formula” (Page 18)
* “In fiscal year 2018-19, the BEP funding formula generated a total of 62,888 licensed instructional positions, but school systems employed a total of 69,633 with state and local revenue.”
“Although the changes made in 1992 and since have resulted in substantial increases in funding to support the BEP, meeting local needs and the requirements imposed by the state and federal governments often requires more resources than the BEP funding formula alone provides. Consequently, state and local funding in fiscal year 2017-18 totaled $2.1 billion over and above what was required by the BEP formula, including a total of $1.7 billion in local revenue.”
“Given the ever evolving needs of communities in Tennessee and the likelihood that the BEP funding formula could better account for these needs, the Commission recommends that a comprehensive review of the components be made by the BEPRC or other designated state and local officials and other stakeholders to ensure that the BEP funding formula supports a commonly accepted basic level of education for Tennessee students.”
The TACIR report, showing a gap of nearly 7000 teachers, comes on the heels of a Tennessee Department of Education report indicating a “teacher gap” of 9000.
Additionally, the $1.7 billion identified by TACIR is slightly more than the $1.5 billion targeted by a group of legislators seeking to bring the BEP up to a level of adequacy.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
