Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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School funding favored Dems’ districts
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
The results are in: Having a legislator in your neighborhood doesn’t mean your schools will get more state aid. On average, the school districts where legislators live received smaller state aid increases than the state as a whole in the two-year Ohio budget passed last month. Statewide, schools got about a 4.5 percent raise in state basic aid while lawmakers’ own school districts averaged about 3.5 percent. “I think it’s a statistical fluke,� said Bill Phillis, executive director of the Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding. Curiously, it was the Democrats — a minority in both houses and a party without a single statewide officeholder — who saw their home school districts benefit the most. School districts where Democratic lawmakers reside saw an average increase of about 7.6 percent while the home school districts of Republicans will receive an average raise of 1 percent. Phillis, political observers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were quick to point out that Democrats are more likely to represent big cities. Because cities tend to have higher poverty, the state’s school funding formula is weighted to provide extra aid to those school districts. Democratic state Sen. Tom Roberts, D-Trotwood, said the party would love to say its tough negotiating stance resulted in the big gains for the Democrats’ home school districts, but realistically it was a function of the formula. “We did our very best, but it was a slam dunk,� he said. The education system is underfunded, Roberts said, but extra aid to high poverty schools is one thing it does right. “We believe the formula is still flawed. It still relies too much on property taxes. But it’s working to some degree,� he said. Acting on a reader’s theory that state lawmakers might have rewarded the school districts where they live with extra increases in state aid, the Dayton Daily News reviewed the data and discovered it didn’t happen. The data also showed about 30 percent of school districts received no gain in state aid in the new budget. That percentage was roughly the same for the home school districts of legislators. Bob Adams, a political scientist at Wright State University, said the funding formula is so complex it does not lend itself to serving the interests of individual lawmakers. “To hatch a conspiracy in school funding would be complicated because nobody understands the formula,� he said. Karen Tabor, spokeswoman for House Speaker Jon Husted, RKettering, said school funding idiosyncrasies are not intentional. “Education is not a partisan issue,� she said. “It’s about the children.�
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