Georgia school funding: Target spending to need

In October, a trial court judge will attempt to find answers to questions that neither the state Department of Education nor the Legislature has been willing to explore: What is an adequate education in Georgia? How much does it cost?

The phrase “adequate education” appears in the state constitution. And while it may be murky as to what adequacy looks like, the constitution is clear on who is responsible: “The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia.”

Now, a band of largely rural school districts — united under the moniker of the Consortium for Adequate School Funding — is suing the state. The consortium’s 50 members allege they can’t provide an adequate education to students because of a funding formula that relies on property taxes and because of the continued austerity cuts by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Even though Georgia balances some of the disparities in property wealth by giving grants to poorer areas, rural districts maintain that children in affluent areas still enjoy far more educational opportunities.

The state disagrees, saying there’s no evidence that rural students are denied educational opportunities because of a lack of funding. The state also contends that local systems bear the blame for low student achievement because their spending priorities are askew; state experts cite the example of a rural system that said it couldn’t afford to retain a $60,000-a-year reading specialist while at the same time awarding its high school and junior high football coaches $80,000 in supplemental pay.

So is the state evading its responsibility by failing to sufficiently fund education and shifting more of the costs onto local communities, as alleged in the lawsuit?

Or are the districts attempting to walk away from their own management failures and misguided priorities, as the state counters?

Both sides are spending millions of dollars to advance their cause. So far, the 5-year-old lawsuit has produced nearly 500,000 pages of legal documents. The trial begins Oct. 21 in Fulton County Superior Court and is expected to last four to six weeks.

And it’s not certain that anyone will really win, even the students.

Even if the court sides with rural schools and orders a greater investment in education, there’s no guarantee that student achievement will soar. That’s not been the case in many instances where courts have stepped in and forced states to put more money into schools over the past four decades.

That’s because the answer isn’t simply more money, it’s more money well spent. It’s money for smaller class sizes for minority and disadvantaged children, a reform shown to produce academic gains over time. It’s money spent on keeping the best teachers — the ones who move their students the furthest along each year — in the classrooms. It’s money spent on preschool for at-risk 3-year-olds, something the state hasn’t even considered in any real way.

Public schools rely on a mix of federal, state and local dollars. Until recent years, the state had kicked in about 60 percent of school costs. But the average is now 55 percent, and more mandated costs are shifting to the local school boards. Since each percentage point drop represents more than $100 million, systems complain that they’re losing ground.

“Money isn’t everything,” says Joe Martin, the former Atlanta School Board president who is the executive director of the consortium. “Dedicated teachers, effective leaders, and active parents are all essential. But the undeniable fact remains that a school must have enough resources to meet the basic needs of its students. Anything less is crippling. That’s all we’ve ever contended.”

However, sending sacks of money to school systems with lackluster leaders and teachers will likely result in lackluster results. But the leadership at DOE and at the Capitol refuses to take on the critical issues of how best to enhance teacher quality and how to entice the best teachers to work in the most challenging areas.

Georgia clings to teacher pay scales that reward seniority and college degrees rather than student gains and performance. Even though Perdue touts market solutions in most every other instance, he continues to favor across-the-board raises for teachers.

Research shows that teacher quality is one of the most important factors in student achievement. A string of high-quality teachers can overcome many of the background disadvantages that poor children bring to the classroom.

However, three years of ineffective teaching erodes the ability of a child from a low-income, uneducated household to ever catch up with peers from more affluent, better educated families.

In its acknowledgement of the importance of teachers, Georgia has chosen to raise the salary for all teachers and to reward seniority and college degrees rather than performance. But these two incentive strategies don’t give the state any return on its investment.

The problem with wholesale pay increases is that bad teachers appreciate fatter paychecks as much as good teachers. Uniform pay increases may appeal to teachers, but they don’t jump-start student achievement.

If the equation was as simple as higher spending equals higher achievement, then schools would have improved a long time ago.

— Maureen Downey, for the editorial board