Study by the Association for Equity and Funding Shows Gap in School Funding, Part 5
Monday, October 6th, 2014 -- 11:05 AM
-The Association for Equity and Funding recently released information from a study they commissioned that looked at school funding for districts around the state for the past 10 years.John Gaier, District Administrator for Neillsville and Chair of the Association, said that now that they have this data, they want to put it in the hands of the lawmakers and raise awareness to the general public. He also talked about referendum being passed in poorer districts and the burden it creates on tax payers.
John said, "Referendums, many times, are being passed in property poorer districts to try to keep up, which is an unfair burden to taxpayers especially in the low wealth property districts. So that's another issue that has to be addressed, we think, in this funding formula."
"But the goal is to get this information in the hands of the legislatures and let them see that this is a real problem and that constitutionally, we believe, that they are not meeting their constitutional responsibility of funding all districts in as equally a matter as possible or providing opportunities for all students, no matter where they live in the state, with equal opportunity for learning. I think that is very, very key. Again, based on the Supreme Court decision that said in order for a funding system to be considered equitable, it has to take into consideration those three groups of students, that I mentioned before, and with the proof of this longitudinal study that it's getting worse instead of better, we hope that shines a light on some of things we've been saying so that the legislature looks at their next budget and says 'yeah, these are things that we need to address to help schools have equity and to be able to provide equal learning opportunities for all kids no matter where they live."
"And we're not trying to say that schools that are able to spend at a higher rate per student should lose their funding. We're saying that those are the schools that we should probably be holding up as models of opportunity that all of our schools should have access to."
Once again, the study looked at data for schools from 2004 to 2011 and focused on three key groups of students which were special education, economically disadvantaged and English language learners.
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