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Kansas Liberty: 15 December 2008
The school district that helped start the funding spree now says it needs some more
Salina comes back for more education money
As lawmakers and the governor struggled to deal with the state's spiraling deficit, Robert Winter, superintendent for Salina schools, told the Salina Board of Education last week that he plans to ask the Kansas Legislature for more school funding.
Winter's district is USD 305, one of the two school districts to file a case early in Montoy vs. Kansas. The suit gave the Kansas Supreme Court the opportunity to order the Legislature to provide substantial funding increases for schools.
The increases are widely blamed for being the primary culprit in creating the state's growing financial crisis. Meanwhile, a recent University of Kansas study found there was "little evidence" that funding increases improved student test scores.
According to a local newspaper report, Winter told the Salina School Board he plans to convince the Legislature that Salina schools need more money by outlining how the district has spent the Legislature’s funding over the past four years and reminding the Legislature that the Supreme Court’s decision stipulates the consumer price index be taken into consideration when determining education funding.
“We recognize that money is tight, but think the CPI should be followed,” he said at the meeting.
Winter did not return Kansas Liberty’s requests for comments.
Carol Brandert, Salina school board member, said she was not confident Winter would receive the funding he is asking for.
“Asking for increased funding for schools is the only position he can take responsibly,” Brandert told Kansas Liberty. “But we knew before we came into these last few months that there would be little or no money available.”
Brandert said she was concerned how the funding cuts would impact Salina schools.
“If the Legislature does not fund schools even as we have been funded in the last year other cuts will have to be made, and that’s a sad thing for youngsters and for the progress we have made, and it will make it more difficult to meet the No Child Left Behind guidelines,” she said.
Rep. Owen Donohoe, R-Shawnee, and member of the Legislative Educational Planning Committee, said he couldn’t imagine schools being allocated increases in school funding given the large deficit.
Donohoe said that in a recent legislative meeting, it was suggested that there should be 15 percent budget cuts across the board but that if education were to be spared of budget cuts then all other agencies would experience 30-percent cuts.
“The greatest challenge right now is how to keep the funding there without decreasing it,” Donohoe told Kansas Liberty. “We don’t even know the full impact of the deficit and every day it is becoming clearer that it’s worse than we anticipated.”
Donohoe said he was not concerned about Kansas schools taking legal action if they did not receive increases in school funding.
“I don't think there is anything on the horizon where someone would be out there legally challenging what is done,” he said. “And we have given them almost a billion dollars in the last three years and that’s a pretty substantial increase.”
Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, and member of the Legislative Educational Planning Committee, said she was concerned with the school funding situation.
“The Legislature is going to have to address this and it is the hope and intention to protect funding for K-12, but I think there is also the understanding that this may not be possible,” Francisco told Kansas Liberty.
“But I think it is reasonable for people to ask for what they believe they need and to also understand the situation we are all in," she said.
Generating school funding via taxes was one solution brought up during the Salina School Board meeting. Francisco said legislators should look at possibly changing the amount of tax exemptions and tax reductions to help generate education funding.
“I think the first things to be looked at would be exemptions and perhaps not going forward with planned tax reductions,” Francisco said. “The more we can spread the burden the lower it will be for all.”
- Holly Smith
Resources
- State Supreme Court says the Legislature has complied with the court's demand for funding: http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Opinions/Supreme-Court-Summaries/2006/20060728-93032.asp
- The Salina Journal's coverage of Winter's statements: http://www.newsok.com/school-district-spare-education/article/feed/29505
- USD 305's website: http://www.usd305.com/depart/board.html
- From Kansas Liberty: The KU study on the relationship between funding and student performance.
Continued belligerent ignorance
Meanwhile, a recent University of Kansas study found there was "little evidence" that funding increases improved student test scores.
You seem to completely ignore the fact that this study was utter garbage, as outlined in very simple terms in my post in response to your initial report. To reiterate:
Setting aside academic nitpicking over the absurdly crude statistical analysis provided by the author, lets take a look at the basic question of whether there even was a massive infusion of funding to Kansas schools from 1997 to 2005.
Data on unified K-12 school districts from the Fiscal Survey of Local Governments - Public Elementary and Secondary Education Finances suggest otherwise - In fact, Kansas fell further and further behind national averages during that very period. And, any court ordered funding that went into the system, did so after the period investigated.
year Nation Kansas Gap
1990 $ 4,422 $ 4,105 $ 316
1991 $ 4,683 $ 4,252 $ 431
1992 $ 4,779 $ 4,536 $ 243
1993 $ 5,072 $ 4,944 $ 128
1994 $ 5,242 $ 5,157 $ 84
1995 $ 5,415 $ 5,261 $ 154
1996 $ 5,568 $ 5,436 $ 132
1997 $ 5,751 $ 5,550 $ 201
1998 $ 6,020 $ 5,786 $ 234
1999 $ 6,336 $ 5,946 $ 390
2000 $ 6,722 $ 6,243 $ 479
2001 $ 7,191 $ 6,547 $ 644
2002 $ 7,525 $ 7,048 $ 477
2003 $ 7,854 $ 7,291 $ 563
2004 $ 8,123 $ 7,519 $ 604
2005 $ 8,530 $ 7,706 $ 825
Okay… so let’s take a second look. Here’s Kansas versus the nation after adjusting simultaneously for regional differences in labor costs and for inflation in labor costs, using the National Center for Education Statistics, Comparable Wage Index. Now… Kansas is higher than the national average, because Kansas is a very low cost state. But, notice that Kansas current spending has been pretty much flat over the period after controlling for changes in competitive wages.
year National Kansas
1998 $ 6,558 $ 7,251
1999 $ 6,579 $ 7,102
2000 $ 6,609 $ 7,041
2001 $ 6,801 $ 7,078
2002 $ 6,748 $ 7,238
2003 $ 6,858 $ 7,277
2004 $ 6,851 $ 7,290
2005 $ 6,987 $ 7,328
So why does this matter? Let me connect the dots here. If there was no massive infusion of cash into Kansas schools, one could not possibly measure an effect of such an infusion on educational outcomes. There must be a shock to the system to measure the effects of that shock on the system. Pretty simple. Further, even if funding had crept incrementally upward across all districts while outcomes simultaneously crept incrementally upward, one could not distill statistically a relationship between the two - Certainly not over a period from 2004 to 2006, only a few years later. Interestingly in this case what we have are outcomes drifting upward with resources staying constant (with respect to competitive wage growth) or negative with respect to education spending growth nationally.
One earlier, more rigorous, peer reviewed study in the Economics of Education Review, addressing the infusion of funding to Kansas schools during the 1992 reforms, found via fixed effects (change over time) regression:
“Using panel models that, if biased, are likely biased downward, I have a conservative estimate of the impact of a 20% increase in spending on the probability of going on to postsecondary education. The regression results show that such a spending increase raises that probability by approximately 5%.”
Deke, J. (2003). A Study of the impact of public school spending on postsecondary educational attainment using statewide school district financing in Kansas. Economics of Education Review, Volume 22, Number 3, June 2003 , pp. 275-284(10).
Other studies on Massachusetts, Kentucky and Vermont have produced similar findings following major structural changes to aid formulas. I’ll gladly share the citations for those interested.
Further, your choice of wording regarding the judicial role:
"The suit gave the Kansas Supreme Court the opportunity to order the Legislature to provide substantial funding increases for schools."
is peculiar if not completely warped. This phrasing suggests that the court was simply waiting to be fed such an opportunity. In fact, the initial response of the trial court was to dismiss the case on the grounds that the same formula had been found constitutional in 1994 (USD 229 v. State). The Supreme Court did accept plaintiffs argument that enough things had changed since that time that a trial was warranted. Neither the trial court nor supreme court seemed enthusiastic to address the issue at the time, since it was still relatively soon after all of the 1990s reforms and court rulings.
You also note:
"The increases are widely blamed for being the primary culprit in creating the state's growing financial crisis."
... or could it just be the economy... stupid. States are facing large budget deficits. That's just how it is right now.
Now, the states facing the biggest deficits are those most dependent on income tax revenues to fill their general fund budgets and support public services. Those facing the biggest problems in education funding are those most reliant on state general funds to support education. This is because income tax returns drop off more quickly than sales tax returns, and property tax revenues are the most stable of the mix.
So, why is this relevant? Well, Kansas' difficulties with education funding and the impact of education funding on the state budget are largely a function of the reductions in the statewide general fund mill levy from 35 mills to 20 mills in the late 1990s. The legislature created an imbalanced revenue portfolio for itself at that time, leading to the difficult school funding circumstances from 2001 to 2003, and again now. Had the legislature not cut this more stable revenue source from the system, they'd be much better off right now. Yes, unlike the 2001-2003 downturn where only income tax revenues declined, this downturn is hitting other revenues, even potentially property tax revenues. That said, property tax revenues are still more resilient (less elastic).
I'm simply mind-blown by the level of ignorant rhetoric I see in this supposed news outlet.
causes of school funding problems
The additional 15 mills that was cut back then, would yield about $418 million per year in relatively stable (inelastic) school revenue using 2007 general fund taxable property wealth data. Gee... that might have provided a good buffer. Go figure. Easier to blame those damn activist judges and that one discredited study though. Right? Perhaps a little more attention to the details of history and a few real numbers would help your reporting be somewhat more than complete schlock. I hold out no high expectations for the future.
Assessed value data for 2007 are here:
http://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/School%20Finance/reports_and_publications/assessed_valuation/2007assessedval.xls
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Wrong Francisco
Wrong Sen. Francisco. The less you SPEND, the lower the burden will be for all. If you spend MORE and spread it around, all it does is create a larger tax burden for EVERYONE!