Hmpg Answers: Funding WA Schools

Understand the consequences of underfunded K-12 students

Some Answers — The Home Page Questions and Statistics

The Home Page Lists Questions and Statistics

Here are some answers, with additional info to help you bring questions to your schools and legislators.

Are These Familiar Questions, But The Answers Hard To Come By?

¨ Why are most class-sizes so large, and many are overcrowded?

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The size of a class — the number of students sitting in front of a teacher—comes together from several factors. The class-size issue represents every problem inherent to underfunding the K-12 system.

For reference: researchers recommend a K-3 core class size of 15 or less and a Grades 4-12 core class size smaller than 25.

Class size by itself is not necessarily an issue, but without all the other qualities—high quality staff, an adequate number of staff, academically homogeneous students, available building space, adequate instructional materials, etc—class size becomes a readily recognizable target of frustrations. Each characteristic of class-size directly confronts a funding formula equation.

The factors that converge in the classroom are:

¨ The neighborhood demographics — what kids live in the boundary area of the school building, and the mix of age (grade), capability, and needs.

¨ Building space available — how many appropriate and usable classrooms are physically available? Capital funding — money that builds buildings and facilities—is nearly completely separate from operating funds. Budgets that ‘run’ buildings are different from budgets that ‘build’ buildings. The majority, if not the vast majority, of capital funds are created and raised locally for most districts.

¨ Teachers available—how many, and how many of those needed, are available and can be hired. The State doesn’t pay for enough staff, or pay them enough to be competitive in the wider market place.

¨ High-quality, well trained, effective staff available to be hired and put in the classroom.

¨ Laws—I-728, which calls for reduced class-size but doesn’t mandate adequate funding to do so. Plus other laws that require certain services be provided, and are more enforceable, drain funds from less secure (legally mandated) parts of district budgets that could address class size.

¨ High school period hours—seat time versus graduation requirements.

One effect of a reduced instructional work force is larger class sizes as districts shift limited instructional staff from core classes to remedial courses for math and reading. Although it’s usually a last resort, some districts have reduced the number of teachers by not replacing those who leave or retire. The districts may hope to accomplish the reduction through attrition rather than layoffs.

Already affected by significantly insufficient funding, those schools with higher poverty are the hardest hit again when budgeting choices do reach this level.

aFor example, in the Highline, Kent and Yakima school districts, high school core classes were in excess of 30 students. Two Highline teachers said that their 9th and 10th grade classes had as many as 38 students. (4)

Students Enrolled Per Teacher

In the 2005-06 school year, Washington’s 19.3 enrolled students per teacher makes it the 5th highest in the nation. The national average was 15.6. Compared to other states in the western region, Washington’s number of enrolled students per teacher was below California (21.0) and Oregon (19.8) but above Idaho (18.0). For a variety of reasons, this measure of students to teachers does not translate into the “average class size” in any given school, district, or state.

Source: 2008 Citizen’s Guide to K-12 Finance—National information is often utilized to compare different aspects of K-12 finance. It should be noted that comparisons with other states, while interesting, often do not lend themselves to any definitive conclusions regarding each state’s K-12 finance system, due to differences in reporting practices, demographics, and public school funding systems.

Additional resources on class size from BEF and OSPI:

Reports:

Class Size and Other Fundamental Decisions—05/06/08

Committing to Class-Size Reduction and Finding the Resources to Implement It: A Case Study of Resource Reallocation

What Research Says About Small Classes and Their Effects

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¨ Why are districts letting go librarians, cutting classroom programs and curriculums, charging more user fees, and closing neighborhood school buildings?

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Underfunding, underfunding, underfunding, underfunding.

All the incremental deficits in support cause districts to ‘nibble around the edges’ of programs and line items that are more enduring due to the laws, contracts and process that provide better protection when times get lean. And times are lean.

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¨ Why does our high school have 6 periods while other districts have 7?

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The state pays for 5 class periods per day. Sufficient local levy dollars often pay for one additional hour to provide a 6 period day. In some districts, additional local levy dollars (combined with above-average state allocations for staff or I-728 funds) can pay for 7 periods.

Each additional period hour offers significant advantages in preparing for college requirements or CTE job training. Over their high school career, a student at a 7-period school could gain not only an additional 6-8 classes, but 6-8 AP or other advanced classes offering superior opportunities to advanced careers. All because they live in one area of the state and not another.

Overview of WA State Board of Education’s Core 24 project.

The Core 24 recommended requirements by the WA State Board of Education.

Does your high school currently provide enough graduation credits for a student to be eligible for college?

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¨ Why is access to AP classes often limited?

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AP classes are often funded primarily or wholly through local levy money. Each district is left to their own decisions on how to prioritize staff, space and time to AP/BC. A big factor too is whether a district is able to provide 7 vs 6 hour periods in the high school curriculum—the state pays for 5. When local levy dollars are locally re-allocated to pay for state Basic Ed programs, there are not enough sources to replace the dollars that pay for AP courses.

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¨ Why are graduates not getting hired at the higher paying job?

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WA high school graduation requirements are not aligned with college admission requirements — often even the best graduate’s transcripts fall short, much less the bulk of graduates expecting to have a choice of continuing their education.

See the two topics above—the number of high school periods plus the availability of CTE or AP classes.

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¨ Why aren’t accomplished seniors getting accepted at our local state colleges?

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High school graduation requirements are less and fewer than application requirements to most state 2- or 4-year schools. Again, see the topics above—the number of high school periods and availability of AP or BC classes.

Additionally, high schools are often ranked by competitive colleges per their degree of course rigor and depth — how does your high school rank in the UW’s admission decision? A 4.0 grade point average is not equally rated from across the state— many high schools’ grading is discounted compared to other more demanding secondary schools. A standout student from a high school is handicapped by the opportunities offered simply by the vagaries of school district boundaries.

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¨ Why is turn-over often so high among teachers, especially within their first 3 years?

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The marketplace for quality employees is competitive—teacher salaries often are not. There is plenty of rationales and blame to spread around for this question. So where could one start?

The K-12 teaching career path is often not treated as being professional, nor conducive to retaining professionals. These people - career specialist employees - are entrusted with an immense responsibility, tasked with teaching children to adequately become the next generation. These people hold vast obligations, and should be supported.