Memo: Reforming School Funding

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RE: Reforming School Funding

School Funding and Reforms

In contemporary society, school funding is a common topic of discussion across the domain of education. Usually, school funding may be identified as being the cash K-12 learning establishments get to sustain their daily operations (Baker, 2014). Though it has been observed that funding sources differ according to various factors, such as the nature of the school (private or public) or student population, most learning institutions are funded mainly through similar sources. Reforming school funding entails instituting measures that would transform the inequities and challenges in this process. To fully comprehend this topic, private and public school’s perspectives should be analyzed.

Private schools may be a preference for parents for their children. Such establishments do not obtain funding from governmental sources and are needed to raise their cash to finance the education process. Since a school does not benefit from public funds, such learning facilities are not mandated to have the same accountability as public schools, such as the student-teacher ratios and state-mandated testing (Baker, 2014). The funding of such private institutions comes from a few areas. One funding source is tuition where, unlike public institutions, public schools necessitate guardians and families to pay for their children. Tuition mostly denotes the predetermined amount of cash required to attend a school. Other sources include fundraisers and endowments. Reforming school funding in such learning facilities may, therefore, pose a challenge, as guardians and parents are always at the mercy of the school administration. On the other hand, public schools are funded and run by the government, and hence, the reforms can be easily implemented. Largely, reforming school funding is a significant topic of discussion across academic circles owing to the large group of learners it impacts.

Reforming School Funding: Current Status

In the recent past, school funding has received significant attention largely owing to various concerns touching on the subject. Advocates, policymakers, and the general public have been concerned with the myriad of inequities in funding levels of learning institutions attended by learners from wealthy families and those from poor backgrounds (Baker, 2014). It has called for reforms in school funding. In some unfolding events regarding reforming school funding, the reports examining data from the past five years show the uneven and unfair nature of public school funding in various states across the United States. The assessment has been accomplished by analyzing the condition of state school finance systems with an emphasis on the equitable distribution of resources to the most deserving learners. Various contemporary issues raised are that many states have mostly stagnant or failing funding levels, and huge disparities among states are common. Funding levels have plummeted notwithstanding the adjustment for inflation. According to Baker (2014), there exists a huge difference (of nearly $10,000) between Wyoming (the highest funded state) and Idaho (the lowest).

Another revelation has been that the mainstream states have funding systems with supposedly regressive flat funding distribution patterns that overlook the necessity for extra funding in high-poverty districts. Contemporary trends reveal a surge in the number of regressive states and a fall in the number of progressive states. Most states that were once ranked alongside the most progressive ones, they have experienced a substantial erosion of equity.

It has also been established that various states faced a decrease in general revenue resulting in a failing monetary base from which to finance the schools. Apart from that, most states reduced effort by lowering the share of economic productivity intended for education with the most notable reductions apparent in Florida, Hawaii, and Maine (Strauss, 2014). According to Ratcliffe (2017), the learning institutions are making teachers redundant, dropping subjects from the syllabus, and even requesting learners to purchase their books, as the schools struggle to manage the funding cuts. Most facilities have already made the cutbacks, while others are contemplating the move. When teachers leave, most institutions are not replacing them either.

The funding cuts are also leading to excessive workloads, which the government supposedly pledged to diminish. Due to school funding cuts, teachers are both taking larger classes and also required to teach extra hours with minimal assistance from support staff. In some schools, teaching assistants are assuming the role of the pedagogues. Apart from that, most head teachers in various schools have been hit with a broad range of additional costs. Such expenses arise from increased contributions to national cover and teachers’ pensions, with the advent of the national living wage, pay hikes, and the apprenticeship duty. In addition to this, per-learner funding is stagnant in line with the high cost of living. It has been estimated to be in cuts of 8% in actual terms by 2019-2020 (Ratcliffe, 2017). The financing pressures have instilled fear in many stakeholders that it would translate to less support for learners with additional learning needs.

Today, since states depend largely on local property taxes to fund learning, influential districts may raise extra cash compared to poor districts. The outcomes are that learners in deprived communities usually attend overcrowded and underfunded learning institutions proving woefully inadequate education (Baker, Sciarra, & Farrie, 2014). Apart from that, parents and guardians in such poor areas remunerate a significant part of their income for public education compared to wealthier caregivers. It has also resulted in the perceived rift among the state courts regarding the constitutionality of unequal funding with the new generation of lawsuits challenging both the equity of funding and the sufficiency of education offered to learners.

The current trends in reforming school funding are seen in the current rational approaches. By compelling states to define adequate education, the courts are aiding legislators to rationalize school funding. By requesting legislators to institute clear learning goals for all learners, it becomes easier to connect educational adequacy with new state guidelines to establish the costs needed to provide the education. Then, the legislators can set reasonable tax rates founded on how much it would cost to support the learning facilities. All these are a part of the reforms in school funding aimed at salvaging the pressing issues of education.

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Reforming School Funding: Connection to U.S. Intergovernmental Relations

School funding and reforms are largely linked to U.S. intergovernmental relations owing to various reasons. School financing has been financed through property levies. School funding frameworks are similarly seen to differ by state, where in the ordinary state, the funding of K-12 education is shared nearly equally by the state and local governments (Malin, 2016). Here, the federal government has been observed to fund less than 10% of the cost. Many states have provisions intended to target extra funding to districts attended by poor students with the aim of making up for these districts’ limited capacity to gather income through property levies and related local sources.

The connection between school funding reforms and US intergovernmental relations is better seen in public schools. The latter are state-funded institutions but also receive support from local and federal programs. It is, however, important to know that technically, the federal government does not fund learning institutions (Malin, 2016). It is the states that establish the bulk of funding for public schools founded on taxes and lotteries. The expenses associated with professional development efforts highlight the significance of intergovernmental arrangements for the funding of education, including the relative share of the costs. Today, school funding is likely to become more intricate, as governmental agencies need to establish who is accountable and the level of funding. Such a complex link is vital in creating the nature of reforms in school funding.

Reforming School Funding: Different Arguments

The issue of education reforms undoubtedly raises different perspectives. In particular, the various arguments have been raised regarding the fairness of school funding reforms. It is observed that on both national and state levels, the controversies regarding school funding have taken center stage in debates regarding the future of K-12 education (Malin, 2016). Apart from that, in regards to various recent high-stakes showdowns between legislatures and governors over school funding and a lot of state-level lawsuits on funding formulas, the debate regarding funding the disadvantaged students rages on. Numerous reforms have been advanced regarding the use of property tax to fund education. A key among these is scrapping property tax as a means of school funding. The reform has nevertheless elicited mixed reactions.

The group opposing the reform claims that despite the public disdain to the extent of scrapping off funding from property tax, public schools continued dependence on them. First, it is imperative to acquire some assistance from localities to enhance local control. Usually, strengthening the connection between duty collection and the delivery of public services denotes one way to enhance taxpayer gratification (Hungerman & Rinz, 2016). Therefore, the opponents of this reform claim that the eradication of local taxes would no doubt diminish taxpayers’ capability to establish how much they needed to spend on other services required by the communities.

Opponents of this reform also claim that considering the relative stability of property taxes, they are less susceptible to economic changes compared to sales and income taxes. As a result, this permits schools to provide consistent services throughout the years (Malin, 2016). Apart from that, if related taxes replaced property taxes, they would compete with the very income sources that the federal government and most state administrations depend on.

On the other hand, proponents of this reform assert that while money is not the only pointer of quality education, it is characteristically vital. The goal of any sane and strong public learning system is to provide equal public assistance for entire learners (Hungerman & Rinz, 2016). Local property taxes thwart this objective and need to be replaced with a taxing system capable of funding students fairly irrespective of their state of financial backgrounds.

In another explanation for the support of property tax reform, in a lot of states, local property taxes levied on residents within a particular district are used to fund schools. Usually, districts with great property endowment tax low levies and accumulate lots of revenues. On the other hand, low-property-wealth districts need to impose inflated tax rates on those who can only afford it to raise a similar amount of revenue. The outcomes are that the districts either tax their populace to death to back school funding or go for a reasonable property tax at the expense of educational resources.

Comments on the Arguments and the Issue

The group observes the significance of education reforms, particularly regarding reforming school funding. Thus, there is a need for every student to be treated equally and have educational resources fairly distributed. Using property tax to fund education is a precarious means of attaining the goals of education (Malin, 2016). It explains the disparities seen in education outcomes. The group is of the view that if states guarantee they offer a specific amount of cash per student for both capital and operations expenditures and necessitate the same property tax rate on all residents, we may equalize the resources available to all students. It would guarantee that all taxpayers equally back the school funding program. Notwithstanding these concerns, it is high time that the reforms in school funding were embraced.