Failure Rewards in the K-12 System – Orange County Register
California spends a lot on education. Since Proposition 98 was passed in 1988, guaranteeing education to a minimum of 40% of the general fund, spending per K-12 student has grown faster than any other type of state fund. With all that new money, however, the state’s education monopoly continues its history of failure to deliver a quality product.
Just last month, this column cited the federal government’s National Center for Education Statistics, which showed that in 2017-2018, the most recent year for which statistics are available, spending per student on The state’s K-12 public schools were $13,129 in inflation-adjusted 2019-20 dollars, the highest ever. Measured in the same constant dollar, spending per student was $9,594 in 1999-2000.
California is rapidly moving up the spending ranking by multiple metrics, and we’re currently at the top at least 17 in the United States. And many of these statistics are pre-pandemic, before the state plows more money into the system.
A leader in spending money, California lags behind in educational outcomes due to its apparent hostility to meaningful education reforms. For decades, reformers have been unsuccessful in advocating greater school choice, decent pay for teachers, promotion based on merit rather than seniority, and the ability to fire teachers. bad employees, including some with credible allegations of crimes against children.
“Reforms” out of the union-dominated Legislature will only make matters worse. The latest iteration of this is Senator Anthony Portantino’s Senate Bill 830, D-La Cañada Flintridge, which would change the way schools are funded. Under current law, schools receive financial aid based on a formula that includes average daily attendance. This measure would remove daily attendance from the formula, and with it, provide financial incentives for school staff trying to engage students in the building.
Mind you, this comes after the state has frozen funding to pre-pandemic levels to reflect the historic drop in enrollment statewide over the past two years.
But according to SB 830 advocates, the current system is unfair because it penalizes low-income counties that have higher absenteeism and truancy rates. To a rational person, it would seem that if a school has problems with absenteeism and truancy, it would be better to address those problems directly rather than mask the problem and reward those schools. More money for fewer students.
The evidence is that teacher unions are reluctant to return to the classroom, especially in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is not a good idea if teacher unions provide financial incentives to reduce their workload by rewarding school districts with high truancy rates.
This is just the latest example of California lawmakers adopting a counterproductive solution to a problem and their reflexive tendency to throw good money after bad.
We hope that educators in well-run schools where teachers and administrators work with students and parents to promote attendance will push back against this proposal.
Schools should reward success, not failure. Our education dollars should fund the students, not the system. And, if our public school system cannot fulfill its core mission, which is to educate the next generation of Californians, perhaps our education dollars will follow our students. We go to a school – like a charter school or a private school.
Keep that in mind as two school-choice initiatives will collect signatures in the coming months.
Jon Coupal is the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/01/09/rewarding-failure-in-the-k-12-system/ Failure Rewards in the K-12 System – Orange County Register