School spending transparency – When are we going to get it?

How much does my child’s school really spend each year? It’s a very reasonable question, one we get asked at the Bluegrass Institute.

Unfortunately, we’ve had to answer for years that we really don’t know. The reason is that the data provided by the state, such as in the Kentucky School Report Cards system, just doesn’t look trustworthy to us when we get down to talking about individual schools.

And, this situation isn’t unique to Kentucky by any means. On February 27, 2018, Education Week reported (subscription?) that state education departments all across the country are in a dither because a new feature in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires accurate reporting about school level spending no later than December 2019. To be sure, this data is vitally important, but we don’t have solid figures in Kentucky and apparently that is also true in most other states, as well.

And, that is a problem. Business expert and Kentucky Board of Education associate member (and past board chair at BIPPS) Kathy Gornik pointed out during the board’s meeting earlier this month that a lack of such data prevents making intelligent decisions about education priorities, especially in a cash-constrained situation like Kentucky has now.

And, as Education Week’s article amplifies, the lack of accurate education financials also makes it hard for the public to know if money is actually being spent wisely and on the areas intended.

We simply don’t know if districts are skimming too much off the top at the expense of schools when the fiscal data simply are not transparent and useful.

A lack of accurate and transparent data also makes it hard to evaluate educator claims about being under-funded.

One thing’s for sure; the school funding data Kentuckians can access now sure seem dubious. If you doubt that, just click the read more link.

Consider the information in the table below. We obtained all of this from the 2015-16 Kentucky School Report Cards databases.

Lyon Co High Vs Newport High for Spending and Performance in 2015-16

Lyon County High and Newport High are both regular schools (School Type A1).However, in the 2015-16 school term Newport High School reportedly spent a rather astronomical $16,827 per pupil while Lyon County High School only supposedly spent $5,823 per pupil. Across all school levels the state’s average spending was reported at $10,192 per pupil.

Basically, if we are to believe the report card data, Newport spent nearly three times as much as Lyon County High. And, Lyon County High spent not much more than half as much as the state average. Do you believe all of that?

It gets even more challenging to swallow.

Despite the huge spending differences, even though the student demographics look considerably more challenging for Newport, this massive funding advantage didn’t work well for Newport. Lyon High outscored the much higher funded school by significant amounts in every area on K-PREP End-of-Course testing.

In fact, while spending only about 57 percent of the state average per pupil, Lyon County’s K-PREP End-of-Course proficiency rates are consistently higher than the statewide high school averages, as well.

Again, do you really believe that?

I’d love to say let’s all run to Lyon County to see how they get so much from so little, but I just don’t know if the funding data is accurate (I still think Lyon Co. deserves a look, however).It is now over a quarter of century since KERA started to vastly increase Kentucky funding in education. That makes the continued lack of transparency for how those dollars are actually getting spent a real shame.

Apparently, the US Congress knows it. For sure board member Kathy Gornik knows it.

And, now you know there is a real problem in the Bluegrass State, too.