Stanford Report Card Overdue

SACRAMENTO, CA~

Not surprisingly the first rumored finding is that California schools are being short-changed to the tune of $1 trillion. That amounts to an additional $160,000 in per-pupil funding, which already exceeds  $11,600. Findings like that aren’t likely to pass the straight-face test with most Californians or even late-night comedians. The findings sound like the latest version of familiar spin from special interests and the education establishment, that more money means better education. Here we have a problem.

Experts admit it’s impossible to define what an adequate education is, much less what it costs. But that hasn’t stopped the steady stream of scientific-sounding “costing out studies,” or adequacy studies, purporting to do just that.

“‘Costing out studies’ should be interpreted as political documents, not as scientific studies,” according to Stanford University’s Eric Hanushek. They are “political documents, almost always purchased by clients with an agenda.” Hanushek, a Getting Down to Facts contributor and one of the country’s leading education economists, adds: “The important question for assessing costing out studies is whether they can describe policies and resources that will reliably lead to the new, higher achievement levels. None can.

He criticizes adequacy cost studies for their inherent tendency to inflate cost estimates and their susceptibility to political manipulation. Hanushek has also examined every scientific study available on the effects of spending and educational outcomes, 163 in all, and finds that “dramatic increases in resources have not led to the improvement in performance of our students.” 

Will Getting Down to Facts result in meaningful reform? According Michael Kirst, Stanford education professor and project contributor, that depends on some variables. “Are the stars aligned in that the governor and the legislative leaders are ready to move forward with this?"

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ignored repeated warnings to “beware the ides of March” and other glaring evidence that Rome was in trouble. California shouldn’t repeat his tragic mistake. As for professor Kirst’s invocation of the stars, one thing Caesar got right was that “men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault…is not in our stars, but in ourselves…”

No wonder the Caesars in Sacramento are spooked. California was once an education leader but today ranks 48th nationally in both reading and math. The decline is not due to any $1 trillion shortfall in spending. The problem involves not the amount but the way California spends money on education. 

It’s time the legislature dispensed with its recent stream of silliness and made good on its promise to reform categorical funding. This will ensure that money is getting down to the kids in the classroom and not absorbed by bureaucracy. More than 60 educational programs costing up to $15 billion annually are now subsidized by categorical funding. Those programs add millions of dollars in administrative costs each year, are largely exempt from performance reviews, and contribute to district funding iniquities.

Categorical funding should be rolled into general funding and reallocated to districts on a weighted, per-student basis. Such a system would increase student funding by reducing wasteful administration, give schools greater flexibility, and improve funding equity. To promote school efficiency, per-student district funding should be scaled to the annual cost of living index.

So scaled, education funding increases would be removed from politics and therefore more secure. Budgeting would also be simpler and school inefficiencies would be more transparent. Finally, students’ weighted funding would follow them to any public school regardless of where they happen to live. When districts have to compete for students, as some now do in San Francisco and Oakland, they spend education dollars more productively and student achievement improves.

The lesson would seem to be clear. The entire state can rise to improved achievement if legislators are willing to ignore special-interest spin and get down to the actual facts.

Vicki E. Murray is a senior fellow in Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. This column was originally a Capital Ideas feature distributed by PRI.