Get Involved
Right Arrow
Stay informed of new research published and other Citizens Research Council news.
Array
June 28, 2024

Despite Contentious K-12 Budget Passage, Inequitable Per-Pupil Funding for High-Need Students Not Being Addressed

Gongwer News administration reporter Lily Guiney speaks with Senior Research Director Craig Thiel about his recently published, novel analysis of school-level spending patterns across the largest districts in the state, showing many schools are not being funded equitably. Approximately 55 percent of schools in the state's largest districts do not receive equitable per-pupil funding at the state, local and federal levels. This is at odds with the current school funding policy priorities of Lansing officials. The study found that among the 25 largest school districts in the state, several of which also include some of the largest populations of low-income students, a significant number of them did not disperse per-school funding proportionate to their students' socioeconomic status and needs. “As Michigan policymakers look to continue providing additional state “at-risk” funds to those districts with greater proportions of high-need students, they may have to consider additional policy directives to ensure dollars targeted to high-need “at-risk” students are reaching those students and the schools they attend. To this end, Michigan may have to increase the financial transparency and accountability provisions that go along with the additional state “at-risk” dollars or other funding streams intended to serve students with added needs. Those provisions, combined with appropriate state oversight and monitoring, will help ensure that the state’s K-12 funding priorities are being implemented with fidelity at the local district level.”

Transcripts

Show Transcripts Show Transcripts Icon
Hide Transcripts Hide Transcripts Icon

Hello, and welcome to Facts Matter, a podcast by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. I’m Lily Guiney, administration reporter for Gongre News Service, guest hosting today with Craig Thiel of the Citizens Research Council. So what a couple weeks it’s been for public policy in Michigan. We have new budgets.

We saw over 60 policy bills that made their way through the legislature in a very whirlwind few days. And at the center of that, as it so often is, was education, which is what we’re here to talk about today, specifically this intersection of student opportunity and state funding. So Craig, you’ve done some looking into a gap between what policy is.

appropriate for schools and what kind of money they actually receive for their highest needs students. So walk us through the study of the 25 largest school districts in the state that was recently done. Well, thanks for hosting our podcast, Lily. Yes, we were curious to see. whether or not the state’s policy priorities, which is to fund school districts equitably.

And that means to provide additional per pupil resources to those districts that have higher concentrations of high needs students which we identify in our study as economically disadvantaged. We wanted to see if that Priority is then filtering down and making it to the district level priority when it comes time to allocating resources across the various schools that districts open their doors to.

So, we looked at the 25 largest school districts in Michigan to see. The degree to which, individual schools operating by each of those districts received per pupil funding kind of in lockstep with the share of economically disadvantaged students. So, if a district had, an average district wide student population, that’s 50 percent economically disadvantaged.

We wanted to see if. The school within that district that has a 65 percent economically disadvantaged student body was getting funded proportionally more than the district average. So we did this analysis across these 25. Districts, and then sorted the individual schools into whether or not they weremirroring equitably funded amounts of school resources.

And our conclusion was that Less than 50 percent of the school districts were funding their individual schools equitably. So that means about 50 percent of the schools were not seeing equitable funding on a school level per pupil basis. so obviously, you know, budgets are big things and per pupil funding is a really hot topic right now.

So can you talk a little bit about what exactly it means to have this equitable funding? What kind of impact can that have on a school and in turn on its students? Right? So the research literature is pretty clear. And that students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds largely aren’t given an equal opportunity to achieve because just the resources, the supports that they’ve had when they enter school haven’t been given them.

At the same level as the students who come from a more well off background. Well, school funding has attempted to address those challenges by providing additional resources, financial resources to those districts with higher percentages of needy students, economically disadvantaged students. And those dollars then fundhuman capital, teachers, parapros, additional supplemental.

Resources and supports for those students at the district level, you know The real question in the analysis that we did is to what degree then our school districts who have Full control on how they budget the resources they get from the state In the federal government, how are they then sub allocating those resources across their various schools?

Because as I mentioned, the average percentage of low income students in a district may cloud considerable variation across the individual schools that that district operates take, for example Dearborn public schools, very high economically disadvantaged student population. 76 percent of the kids are deemed economically disadvantaged and therefore generate additional per pupil resources from the state to help support those kids.

But across the more than 10 schools operated by Dearborn Public Schools, one school, 95 percent of the kids are economically disadvantaged in that And at the other end of the spectrum, there’s a school in Dearborn that just a third of the kids are economically disadvantaged. Again, we wanted to see the degree to which those additional state dollars then are getting allocated to the school with 95 percent economically disadvantaged students.

And what we found when we looked at across all of the largest districts that only about 54 percent of the schools were being funded with state dollars. Resources that were marginally above the district average, if they had more economically disadvantaged students. So this suggests that, you know, school districts aren’t really using a pure equity lens when they allocate resources across the various schools that they operate.

So in that, then you end up with kids who might live in the same zip code, but who have drastically different outcomes in their education. Right. And we know that, big districts, pockets of disadvantage in different areas of the geographic. Footprint of that district. The question is, are those schools then getting the resources to support those kids?

And if the resources aren’t there, it’s really going to be hard for that school to provide the opportunity, at least that state policymakers are intending to be provided to the schools and those kids that are generating those resources. So, of the things that stuck out to me when I was reading the report was that the number of schools that didn’t receive equitable funding grew to almost, I want to say around 62 percent when the 15 most high poverty districts were examined.

So, can you tell me a little bit about, what might be the cause of this andhow that funding gets distributed even more drastically differently in these higher poverty districts? Well, that’s really the next question we want to investigate what’s driving these spending patterns.

As I mentioned, the school board of an individual district is responsible for setting the budget for all the schools that are operated. So we really want to look at what are those budget practices, policies that are driving these spending patterns. I don’t know, and I’m pretty confident school board members and administration are not setting out to shortchange any students.

What’s probably happening is that they’re using antiquated budgeting practicesto allocate resources. And that might be because they haven’t taken the recent pulse of the student demographics in those schools. if they’ve always funded a school with a certain staffing level, regardless of what’s happening with the student body within that school, that could show up in this data.

It could also be the case that they may be looking at the Student demographics across each school and thinking, you know, this school needs more resources because it has Students with greater needs than another school, but if allocating resources based on average teacher salaries versus actual teacher salaries, that could also result in the inequitable fund spending patterns that we’re seeing, because we know that more tenured, higher paid teachers are generally not assigned to the classrooms where the greatest need is.

Those classrooms are usually staffed with younger lower paid teachers, and because teacher pay is such a huge portion ofschool budgets, if those average salaries are effectively dragging down the overall spending in a school that has high needs students, that’ll result in this inequitable spending pattern that we’re seeing.

So where does the state play into all of this? Is there anything that policymakers can do to start addressing these issues? Or is it one of those things that just kind of gets lost in the shuffle of local school boards and municipal government? Well, the state controls the purse strings here, and it’s not uncommon when, a higher level of government sharing resources with the lower level of government.

Put some type of restrictions or requirements attached to those dollars. And historically, Michigan’s at risk funding program has been designed to supplement the resources that are already being provided to at risk students. So the state really has to maintain that requirement that Schools use this to supplement resources for high needs students.

So that means they have to include provisions that prevent districts from supplanting the resources that are already going. So that’s one area where the state might play a role to encourage districts to use the resources as they’re intended. The other way could be, you know, giving districts the ability to allocate resources, how they see fit, but then reporting back, you know, how did they spend the resources on the students that have the greatest needs?

So rather than a restriction, just a reporting requirement, it all in the end boils down to greater financial transparency surrounding these resources. the state. has a very appropriate role in doing that because these are state dollars that are being shared with school districts to pursue a policy that is based on providing every student regardless of zip code, an equal opportunity to learn in Michigan public schools.

So shifting gears a tiny bit you just wrote an op ed about all of this in Bridge, Michigan. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And you know what your takeaways were right? the budget proposals that were being considered since February, when the governor issued a report, allowed school districts to use a portion of their at risk funding to cover their general district wide operations. Proponents of this change suggest that the resources that they get through their foundation allowance and other resources aren’t Sufficient enough to raise teacher salaries and compensation and they need access to other resources to do that to keep teachers in the classroom.

Basically, the governor and the legislative chambers in their proposals allowed schools to varying degrees to use some of their at risk money for these district wide initiatives to address teacher compensation, teacher shortage issues. our analysis of the proposals pointed out that this breaks with a long standing tradition.

Guiding the use of these at risk funds and specifically a requirement that the resources must be used to supplement programs and services provided to at risk students, the proposals would allow districts to move some of those resources out of those at risk programs and use them for broader Needs across the district and so there’s a clear break with that tradition in the proposals.

And as we look at the final budget document, it’s clear that they are allowing this. They changed the amounts in which districts are. Eligible to do this, but there will be an opportunity for districts to use some of the at risk funding for district wide proposals. And I don’t see how that’s going to help address the concern that we raised in our research reports, which showed that districts, given the resources that they’re already receiving, aren’t doing a very good job of equitable distribution of per pupil, dollars. So, you essentially have this gap between what policymakers say they want for students and what’s actually happening through their funding actions. That’s what the data is presenting us with here as we look at school level spending data. And I would noteprior to the last reauthorization of the federal ed law, we didn’t have school level financial data in the state of Michigan.

We had district level. So this is new data. And this is our first kind of chance to review it and analyze it. We are going to look at how the recent run up and at risk funding has played out in terms of school level allocations. But as it stands right now, our analysis suggests that just over 50 percent of schools within the 25 largest districts were being funded equitably.

And that’s a number that’s obviously pretty significant and that’s not even, the rest of the state that’s only 25 districts. do you know of any states or anywhere in the country that this model of the state exerting a little bit more control over these funds might be working to disperse these at risk funds more equitably?

Well Virginia rewrote its school funding law about a decade ago and tied a lot of the additional new resources to programs designed to serve their highest need students. after a number of years of implementation, it was revealed that those resources weren’t making it to the individual schools where those students were attending and receiving education.

Policymakers there had to go in, change law to increase the financial transparency to make sure that, those resources were flowing to those schools. Maryland is in the midst of rewriting its school funding system, and a key part of its rewrite is A requirement that schools show that the resources they receive for high needs students, whether it’s.

Economically disadvantaged students, students with special needs, students who are learning English and English isn’t their first language, that a given percentage, about 75 percent of those dollars are spent on programs serving those students. So, Maryland is definitely requiring some increased financial transparency with its school rewrite.

California Didn’t include it and is going back to the drawing board and making adjustments to require it, Michigan should likely take a look at what happened in California to avoid those mistakes and also look to Maryland and see what it’s doing to ensure that the addition of these at risk dollars through the budget are making it down to the students that they’re intended to serve.

For sure. So was there anything in the process of looking at all of this that surprised you? I mean, we kind of touched a little bit on the idea that it’s likely not plausible that folks are doing this on purpose. The idea that local school boards could be purposefully misdirecting funds.

Was there anything that stuck out to you as something you didn’t expect to see? Well, one thing I think it’s important to note is Michigan’s got a lot of school districts when you. Think of the traditional districts as well as the charters. There’s almost 800 individual school districts. A lot of them, are small districts, so they may only be operating a handful of schools where the allocation across schools really becomes an issue is.

With the larger school districts in the state. And so, from the standpoint of developing state policy, it’s probably going to have to really hone in on those districts where allocations are a meaningful exercise, right? I suspect what plays into this at the local level, too, is the shrinking school Age population in the state of Michigan, and a lot of districts have been forced with.

The realization that they have to downsize and close schools. And those are always tough decisions, keeping open under enrolled schools. And then there by spreading resources thinner across all the schools that a district operates could contribute to the hard decisions aboutright sizing districts in terms of the number of schools they operate

Pay dividends in terms of improving the per pupil funding equity or inequities that we see at the school level within districts. So that’s something that school districts have been dealing with for decades here and have been putting off just because closing schools are really tough politically decisions to make, but they have some real financial implications as we suspect showing up in this data.

Yeah. Soas we kind of head into the summer months, obviously, the legislature is looking to get the hell out of Dodge after this budget process. And, and it’s kind of a question mark as to what the rest of the year would look like and whether this might be an issue that gets addressed.

Before we see maybe a completely new legislature in the beginning of next year. So what comes next year? What is an action that folks in Lansing could take to, see some change on this before, they either aren’t in office anymore, or they’re heading home to their districts and everything kind of becomes second to that.

Well, I think policymakers need to really. figure out what their priorities are, because they have over the last half a dozen years, more than doubled the at risk funding that the state provides school districts with the intent that those dollars would supplement the services. the base foundation dollars are providing.

This budget that was just approved kind of backtracks on that policy. So it begs the question, has the state put too much money into the at risk funding pot and not enough into the base foundation funding pot? if, We’re hearing from districts that they need more money to meet these general district wide spending priorities, whether it’s.

Additional staff increasing the pay of existing staffs. We’ve kind of hit this inflection point. From a policy perspective, where we’re allowing at risk dollars to be used more broadly across the district. And that’s not entirely consistent with the messaging that. State policymakers have been sharing with the public in terms of increasing at risk funding over these last 6 years.

So I don’t know if you know, the barn door is open and the horse has been let out and now it’s going to be just kind of controlling to what degree those at risk dollars will be able to be moved outside of at risk services. Right now, it’s a one time budget item to allow this discretion. A future legislature could come back and pull back the reins on this.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna happen though. Yeah, I know it’s always a little bit of a pie in the sky feeling. especially when we’re in this type of time where we’re about to see everyone pack it up and leave and run for reelection and whatnot, so that it’ll certainly be an issue to watch.

And I’m sure that all of the education groups who are having, pretty strong reactions way or another to this budget are going to be thinking about this in the months and years to come. Thanks for talking Craig. I really appreciate your expertise on this. Well, I’m Lily Guiney and I’ve been speaking with Craig Thiel of the CRC of Michigan online at crcmich.

org and on Twitter at crcmich. This has been Facts Matter, a podcast presentation of the Citizens Research Council, and you can find us online at gongwar. com and on social media at Gongwar, Michigan. Thanks so much.

Despite Contentious K-12 Budget Passage, Inequitable Per-Pupil Funding for High-Need Students Not Being Addressed

Gongwer News administration reporter Lily Guiney speaks with Senior Research Director Craig Thiel about his recently published, novel analysis of school-level spending patterns across the largest districts in the state, showing many schools are not being funded equitably. Approximately 55 percent of schools in the state's largest districts do not receive equitable per-pupil funding at the state, local and federal levels. This is at odds with the current school funding policy priorities of Lansing officials. The study found that among the 25 largest school districts in the state, several of which also include some of the largest populations of low-income students, a significant number of them did not disperse per-school funding proportionate to their students' socioeconomic status and needs. “As Michigan policymakers look to continue providing additional state “at-risk” funds to those districts with greater proportions of high-need students, they may have to consider additional policy directives to ensure dollars targeted to high-need “at-risk” students are reaching those students and the schools they attend. To this end, Michigan may have to increase the financial transparency and accountability provisions that go along with the additional state “at-risk” dollars or other funding streams intended to serve students with added needs. Those provisions, combined with appropriate state oversight and monitoring, will help ensure that the state’s K-12 funding priorities are being implemented with fidelity at the local district level.”

Transcripts

Hello, and welcome to Facts Matter, a podcast by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. I’m Lily Guiney, administration reporter for Gongre News Service, guest hosting today with Craig Thiel of the Citizens Research Council. So what a couple weeks it’s been for public policy in Michigan. We have new budgets.

We saw over 60 policy bills that made their way through the legislature in a very whirlwind few days. And at the center of that, as it so often is, was education, which is what we’re here to talk about today, specifically this intersection of student opportunity and state funding. So Craig, you’ve done some looking into a gap between what policy is.

appropriate for schools and what kind of money they actually receive for their highest needs students. So walk us through the study of the 25 largest school districts in the state that was recently done. Well, thanks for hosting our podcast, Lily. Yes, we were curious to see. whether or not the state’s policy priorities, which is to fund school districts equitably.

And that means to provide additional per pupil resources to those districts that have higher concentrations of high needs students which we identify in our study as economically disadvantaged. We wanted to see if that Priority is then filtering down and making it to the district level priority when it comes time to allocating resources across the various schools that districts open their doors to.

So, we looked at the 25 largest school districts in Michigan to see. The degree to which, individual schools operating by each of those districts received per pupil funding kind of in lockstep with the share of economically disadvantaged students. So, if a district had, an average district wide student population, that’s 50 percent economically disadvantaged.

We wanted to see if. The school within that district that has a 65 percent economically disadvantaged student body was getting funded proportionally more than the district average. So we did this analysis across these 25. Districts, and then sorted the individual schools into whether or not they weremirroring equitably funded amounts of school resources.

And our conclusion was that Less than 50 percent of the school districts were funding their individual schools equitably. So that means about 50 percent of the schools were not seeing equitable funding on a school level per pupil basis. so obviously, you know, budgets are big things and per pupil funding is a really hot topic right now.

So can you talk a little bit about what exactly it means to have this equitable funding? What kind of impact can that have on a school and in turn on its students? Right? So the research literature is pretty clear. And that students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds largely aren’t given an equal opportunity to achieve because just the resources, the supports that they’ve had when they enter school haven’t been given them.

At the same level as the students who come from a more well off background. Well, school funding has attempted to address those challenges by providing additional resources, financial resources to those districts with higher percentages of needy students, economically disadvantaged students. And those dollars then fundhuman capital, teachers, parapros, additional supplemental.

Resources and supports for those students at the district level, you know The real question in the analysis that we did is to what degree then our school districts who have Full control on how they budget the resources they get from the state In the federal government, how are they then sub allocating those resources across their various schools?

Because as I mentioned, the average percentage of low income students in a district may cloud considerable variation across the individual schools that that district operates take, for example Dearborn public schools, very high economically disadvantaged student population. 76 percent of the kids are deemed economically disadvantaged and therefore generate additional per pupil resources from the state to help support those kids.

But across the more than 10 schools operated by Dearborn Public Schools, one school, 95 percent of the kids are economically disadvantaged in that And at the other end of the spectrum, there’s a school in Dearborn that just a third of the kids are economically disadvantaged. Again, we wanted to see the degree to which those additional state dollars then are getting allocated to the school with 95 percent economically disadvantaged students.

And what we found when we looked at across all of the largest districts that only about 54 percent of the schools were being funded with state dollars. Resources that were marginally above the district average, if they had more economically disadvantaged students. So this suggests that, you know, school districts aren’t really using a pure equity lens when they allocate resources across the various schools that they operate.

So in that, then you end up with kids who might live in the same zip code, but who have drastically different outcomes in their education. Right. And we know that, big districts, pockets of disadvantage in different areas of the geographic. Footprint of that district. The question is, are those schools then getting the resources to support those kids?

And if the resources aren’t there, it’s really going to be hard for that school to provide the opportunity, at least that state policymakers are intending to be provided to the schools and those kids that are generating those resources. So, of the things that stuck out to me when I was reading the report was that the number of schools that didn’t receive equitable funding grew to almost, I want to say around 62 percent when the 15 most high poverty districts were examined.

So, can you tell me a little bit about, what might be the cause of this andhow that funding gets distributed even more drastically differently in these higher poverty districts? Well, that’s really the next question we want to investigate what’s driving these spending patterns.

As I mentioned, the school board of an individual district is responsible for setting the budget for all the schools that are operated. So we really want to look at what are those budget practices, policies that are driving these spending patterns. I don’t know, and I’m pretty confident school board members and administration are not setting out to shortchange any students.

What’s probably happening is that they’re using antiquated budgeting practicesto allocate resources. And that might be because they haven’t taken the recent pulse of the student demographics in those schools. if they’ve always funded a school with a certain staffing level, regardless of what’s happening with the student body within that school, that could show up in this data.

It could also be the case that they may be looking at the Student demographics across each school and thinking, you know, this school needs more resources because it has Students with greater needs than another school, but if allocating resources based on average teacher salaries versus actual teacher salaries, that could also result in the inequitable fund spending patterns that we’re seeing, because we know that more tenured, higher paid teachers are generally not assigned to the classrooms where the greatest need is.

Those classrooms are usually staffed with younger lower paid teachers, and because teacher pay is such a huge portion ofschool budgets, if those average salaries are effectively dragging down the overall spending in a school that has high needs students, that’ll result in this inequitable spending pattern that we’re seeing.

So where does the state play into all of this? Is there anything that policymakers can do to start addressing these issues? Or is it one of those things that just kind of gets lost in the shuffle of local school boards and municipal government? Well, the state controls the purse strings here, and it’s not uncommon when, a higher level of government sharing resources with the lower level of government.

Put some type of restrictions or requirements attached to those dollars. And historically, Michigan’s at risk funding program has been designed to supplement the resources that are already being provided to at risk students. So the state really has to maintain that requirement that Schools use this to supplement resources for high needs students.

So that means they have to include provisions that prevent districts from supplanting the resources that are already going. So that’s one area where the state might play a role to encourage districts to use the resources as they’re intended. The other way could be, you know, giving districts the ability to allocate resources, how they see fit, but then reporting back, you know, how did they spend the resources on the students that have the greatest needs?

So rather than a restriction, just a reporting requirement, it all in the end boils down to greater financial transparency surrounding these resources. the state. has a very appropriate role in doing that because these are state dollars that are being shared with school districts to pursue a policy that is based on providing every student regardless of zip code, an equal opportunity to learn in Michigan public schools.

So shifting gears a tiny bit you just wrote an op ed about all of this in Bridge, Michigan. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And you know what your takeaways were right? the budget proposals that were being considered since February, when the governor issued a report, allowed school districts to use a portion of their at risk funding to cover their general district wide operations. Proponents of this change suggest that the resources that they get through their foundation allowance and other resources aren’t Sufficient enough to raise teacher salaries and compensation and they need access to other resources to do that to keep teachers in the classroom.

Basically, the governor and the legislative chambers in their proposals allowed schools to varying degrees to use some of their at risk money for these district wide initiatives to address teacher compensation, teacher shortage issues. our analysis of the proposals pointed out that this breaks with a long standing tradition.

Guiding the use of these at risk funds and specifically a requirement that the resources must be used to supplement programs and services provided to at risk students, the proposals would allow districts to move some of those resources out of those at risk programs and use them for broader Needs across the district and so there’s a clear break with that tradition in the proposals.

And as we look at the final budget document, it’s clear that they are allowing this. They changed the amounts in which districts are. Eligible to do this, but there will be an opportunity for districts to use some of the at risk funding for district wide proposals. And I don’t see how that’s going to help address the concern that we raised in our research reports, which showed that districts, given the resources that they’re already receiving, aren’t doing a very good job of equitable distribution of per pupil, dollars. So, you essentially have this gap between what policymakers say they want for students and what’s actually happening through their funding actions. That’s what the data is presenting us with here as we look at school level spending data. And I would noteprior to the last reauthorization of the federal ed law, we didn’t have school level financial data in the state of Michigan.

We had district level. So this is new data. And this is our first kind of chance to review it and analyze it. We are going to look at how the recent run up and at risk funding has played out in terms of school level allocations. But as it stands right now, our analysis suggests that just over 50 percent of schools within the 25 largest districts were being funded equitably.

And that’s a number that’s obviously pretty significant and that’s not even, the rest of the state that’s only 25 districts. do you know of any states or anywhere in the country that this model of the state exerting a little bit more control over these funds might be working to disperse these at risk funds more equitably?

Well Virginia rewrote its school funding law about a decade ago and tied a lot of the additional new resources to programs designed to serve their highest need students. after a number of years of implementation, it was revealed that those resources weren’t making it to the individual schools where those students were attending and receiving education.

Policymakers there had to go in, change law to increase the financial transparency to make sure that, those resources were flowing to those schools. Maryland is in the midst of rewriting its school funding system, and a key part of its rewrite is A requirement that schools show that the resources they receive for high needs students, whether it’s.

Economically disadvantaged students, students with special needs, students who are learning English and English isn’t their first language, that a given percentage, about 75 percent of those dollars are spent on programs serving those students. So, Maryland is definitely requiring some increased financial transparency with its school rewrite.

California Didn’t include it and is going back to the drawing board and making adjustments to require it, Michigan should likely take a look at what happened in California to avoid those mistakes and also look to Maryland and see what it’s doing to ensure that the addition of these at risk dollars through the budget are making it down to the students that they’re intended to serve.

For sure. So was there anything in the process of looking at all of this that surprised you? I mean, we kind of touched a little bit on the idea that it’s likely not plausible that folks are doing this on purpose. The idea that local school boards could be purposefully misdirecting funds.

Was there anything that stuck out to you as something you didn’t expect to see? Well, one thing I think it’s important to note is Michigan’s got a lot of school districts when you. Think of the traditional districts as well as the charters. There’s almost 800 individual school districts. A lot of them, are small districts, so they may only be operating a handful of schools where the allocation across schools really becomes an issue is.

With the larger school districts in the state. And so, from the standpoint of developing state policy, it’s probably going to have to really hone in on those districts where allocations are a meaningful exercise, right? I suspect what plays into this at the local level, too, is the shrinking school Age population in the state of Michigan, and a lot of districts have been forced with.

The realization that they have to downsize and close schools. And those are always tough decisions, keeping open under enrolled schools. And then there by spreading resources thinner across all the schools that a district operates could contribute to the hard decisions aboutright sizing districts in terms of the number of schools they operate

Pay dividends in terms of improving the per pupil funding equity or inequities that we see at the school level within districts. So that’s something that school districts have been dealing with for decades here and have been putting off just because closing schools are really tough politically decisions to make, but they have some real financial implications as we suspect showing up in this data.

Yeah. Soas we kind of head into the summer months, obviously, the legislature is looking to get the hell out of Dodge after this budget process. And, and it’s kind of a question mark as to what the rest of the year would look like and whether this might be an issue that gets addressed.

Before we see maybe a completely new legislature in the beginning of next year. So what comes next year? What is an action that folks in Lansing could take to, see some change on this before, they either aren’t in office anymore, or they’re heading home to their districts and everything kind of becomes second to that.

Well, I think policymakers need to really. figure out what their priorities are, because they have over the last half a dozen years, more than doubled the at risk funding that the state provides school districts with the intent that those dollars would supplement the services. the base foundation dollars are providing.

This budget that was just approved kind of backtracks on that policy. So it begs the question, has the state put too much money into the at risk funding pot and not enough into the base foundation funding pot? if, We’re hearing from districts that they need more money to meet these general district wide spending priorities, whether it’s.

Additional staff increasing the pay of existing staffs. We’ve kind of hit this inflection point. From a policy perspective, where we’re allowing at risk dollars to be used more broadly across the district. And that’s not entirely consistent with the messaging that. State policymakers have been sharing with the public in terms of increasing at risk funding over these last 6 years.

So I don’t know if you know, the barn door is open and the horse has been let out and now it’s going to be just kind of controlling to what degree those at risk dollars will be able to be moved outside of at risk services. Right now, it’s a one time budget item to allow this discretion. A future legislature could come back and pull back the reins on this.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna happen though. Yeah, I know it’s always a little bit of a pie in the sky feeling. especially when we’re in this type of time where we’re about to see everyone pack it up and leave and run for reelection and whatnot, so that it’ll certainly be an issue to watch.

And I’m sure that all of the education groups who are having, pretty strong reactions way or another to this budget are going to be thinking about this in the months and years to come. Thanks for talking Craig. I really appreciate your expertise on this. Well, I’m Lily Guiney and I’ve been speaking with Craig Thiel of the CRC of Michigan online at crcmich.

org and on Twitter at crcmich. This has been Facts Matter, a podcast presentation of the Citizens Research Council, and you can find us online at gongwar. com and on social media at Gongwar, Michigan. Thanks so much.

Show Transcripts Show Transcripts Icon
Hide Transcripts Hide Transcripts Icon
Stay informed of new research published and other Citizens Research Council news.

Latest Insights

Array
Back To Top