Educational Economics: Where Do School Funds Go?

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Center on Reinventing Public Education, Marguerite Roza, 2010

As federal and local budgets tighten, pressure mounts to spend every dollar right. Yet our current school funding system is so messy and complex that officials often have a hard time even comparing per-pupil funding from one school and program to another. In this concise analysis, Marguerite Roza tracks the often inequitable and illogical results of a finance system split between federal block funding, foundation grants, earmarks, set-asides and union mandates. Nationwide, resources flow toward upper-income and high-achieving students rather than their at-risk peers. Schools are forced to fund electives and athletics above core subjects. And per-pupil allocations can vary widely even within a district. Given the messy, circular nature of the problem, Roza advocates a sweeping set of reforms. Among the elements she proposes: an open market for providers and a money-follows-the-child system, weighted based on student characteristics.

CT Context

Roza’s call for an overhaul of school finance parallels ConnCAN’s report on Connecticut’s antiquated, opaque funding system in our 2009 publication The Tab. As that report argued, it is high time that we begin the transition to a common sense, transparent funding system where money follows children based on their learning needs. A “money follows the child” system would fund charter school students equally instead of at the 75 percent of per-pupil funding they currently receive compared to traditional public schools. It would also give schools and districts greater flexibility to direct money toward student achievement, eliminating the strings attached to the current patchwork of funding. It will be up to our next Governor to provide leadership needed to overhaul our unsustainable and unequal funding system.


Source: The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), an advocacy organization building a new movement of concerned Connecticut citizens working to create fundamental change in our education system.

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