There appears to be no clear link between how much states spend on public education and results. Here are some figures from states that have different types of funding systems:
Georgia: SAT, 1452; college attainment, 27.5 percent; per pupil spending, $4,058
Mississippi: SAT, 1673; college attainment, 19.6 percent; per pupil spending, $4,290
Alabama: SAT, 1608; college attainment, 22 percent; per pupil spending, $5,074
Washington: SAT, 1537; college attainment, 31 percent; per pupil spending, $6,698
Utah: SAT, 1684; college attainment, 28.5 percent; per pupil spending, $3,960
Michigan: SAT, 1782; college attainment, 24.6 percent; per pupil spending, $6,362
U.S.: SAT, 1498; college attainment, 27.9 percent; per pupil spending, $5,352
Sources: College Board, the U.S. Census Bureau
Notes: SAT scores are from 2013. The maximum SAT score is 2400. Scores vary widely based on a number of factors, including the percentage of students taking the test. College attainment figures are from 2009 and are based on the percentage of state residents aged 25 or older with at least a bachelor’s degree. Per pupil spending figures are for the 2009-2010 school year and cover K-12.
Sen. Jason Carter officially qualified to run for governor last week, but his campaign has long been underway, complete with an education platform intended to end what he calls the current “shell game” of education funding.
At the heart of his campaign is a plan to create a separate budget for public education, a process that would be unlike any other in the United States. It would require the education spending plan to be approved by lawmakers and signed by the governor before they tackle funding for other government functions.
Carter hopes this would isolate votes on education spending and make it politically difficult for lawmakers looking to cut education funding. The priority budgeting could result in more funding for schools, which would lead to better student outcomes and make the state more competitive, he said.
“If every year you had to say, ‘This is how we are going to fund education,’ just that bit of transparency would allow us to have a lot more accountability,” Carter said. “We’ve been raiding the education fund for years to pay for other stuff, and I think we should and could stop that if we had that political accountability that I’m talking about.”
Carter's plan, spelled out in Senate Resolution 750, would require a change to the state constitution. (The legislation failed to reach a vote in the Senate this year.)
It is a long shot at best. Obstacles include, first, getting elected, a difficult prospect in a state where no Democrats hold statewide office. And because the legislation calls for a constitutional amendment, two-thirds of the Legislature — controlled by Republicans — would have to approve sending the proposed change to voters.
And while Carter’s proposal could lead to more education funding, there’s no firm evidence that more money raises educational quality, and it could create other budget problems.
“Since we’re not increasing revenues for the state, there would be less to spend on other things,” said Alan Essig, executive director for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “For every dollar more you spend on education, that’s a dollar less to spend on everything else.”
Education plans cited by the incumbent Carter is challenging, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, include reworking the three-decade-old funding formula for school districts and expanding the state’s powers to intervene in struggling districts. Deal proposed $300 million more for schools in his latest budget.
National results vary
Other states have implemented, or at least tried, different ways of funding education, with varying results.
Three states handle their education budget differently than others, according to the National Council of State Legislators, by earmarking certain tax revenues just for it: income tax in Utah; sales tax increases in Michigan; and income and sales taxes in Alabama.
Alabama state Rep. Bill Poole, R-Tuscaloosa, chairman of Alabama’s House Ways and Means Education Committee, said the separation protects tax revenues from being siphoned off for non-educational needs, “but you could argue that the disadvantage is that the legislature has less flexibility” in funding other needs.
A lawmaker in Washington, Bruce Dammeier, has backed legislation similar to Carter’s, to separate education funding from everything else. “Let’s do the most important thing first,” said Dammeier, a Republican. “When faced with competition for health care dollars, social service dollars, education loses out.”
The nonpartisan Education Commission of the States has examined all types of state funding scenarios.
“States have tried all of that,” said Mike Griffith, senior finance analyst for the Commission. “What we haven’t seen that result in is increased spending in education. It’s difficult to mandate increases and sustain it over a significant period of time.”
More spending does not guarantee better outcomes.
New Mexico, Arkansas and Alaska have some of the highest per-pupil state spending levels in the country, according to U.S. Census bureau figures. But those states aren’t among the nation’s leaders in education.
Student performance on education indicators like the SAT and the ACT tests is often more closely tied to poverty levels than to how much a state spends on public education.
There is no good data on whether the dedicated education budgeting has directly improved student achievement, Griffith said.
“The consensus is that funding does matter,” Griffith said. “We just can’t tell how much.”
Lofty goal
Carter cites former Mississippi governor Ronnie Musgrove as the inspiration for his education plan.
Musgrove, a Democrat who led his state from 200-2004, had been credited as lieutenant governor with helping put into law Mississippi’s state funding formula for school districts. That’s similar to how the Quality Basic Education formula guides education spending in Georgia.
As governor, Musgrove used his final State of the State address to call for an even more radical change: separate public education funding in a spending plan sent to him first. He did not call for an amendment to the state constitution, as Carter has.
Lawmakers heeded his call, and the state’s next budget increased education’s share and “was probably the greatest budget for education we ever had,” Musgrove said.
But Musgrove did not win re-election, and his new budgetary process went out with him.
By writing his budget plan into state law, Carter hopes to bypass that pitfall.
Taking the budgeting piece off the table, he said, will lead to a “focus on the non-monetary aspects of education policy that I think we need to focus on to make sure we get what we need accomplished.”
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