My initial thoughts on educational funding

1. We must go above and beyond this figure of $28 per student on foundation funding that is being floated out there. Even though the recommendation includes a sharp increase in the second year of the biennium, I don't think $28 shows much of an effort. According to my little calculator on my laptop here, that is an increase of about 0.5%. The governor is apparently going to have a recommendation well above this figure, although initial reports don't clarify whether this recommendation is to be distributed to the foundation or to other categorical funding (this morning's quote merely said the additional funds would go towards "school districts and students with special needs"). I do like his attitude that we need to move past this target of "adequacy" and shoot for excellence in schools, and appropriating additional money to the foundation would be a good start. How these additional funds could be used for the benefit of classroom education is well documented.

2. We must Increase categorical funding with an emphasis on NSLA funds. Short of a complete overhaul of moving away from funding our schools on the backs of wildly disparate property values from one end of the state to the other, this is the most efficient way of closing the gap on funding between districts in need. This would also probably be the most contentious issue considered this session.

3. We should go above and beyond the committee's recommendation of $250 million (to be transferred from the revenue surplus) for one-time facilities' needs, even if it cuts into the proposed "rainy day" fund many legislators are advocating. This should be adequate considering the transfers made from the Educational Facilities Partnership Fund in the 2006 Special Session (Act 20). As a matter of fact, Act 20 of the 2006 special session could be and should be referenced as a benchmark for this session's funding.

Again, these points should be incorporated into a definition of "adequacy" to give the Court a standard by which to judge the legislature's efforts and constitutional obligations. If we were able to accomplish these three things, I'd feel very confident that we would have done a great service for the children of this state this legislative session, and that the Lake View case would be closed for good.

To put his in perspective and to clear up a misconception as far as Texarkana goes, here is a comparison of total per-pupil revenue/spending for Arkansas vs. Texas (2005 figures):

Arkansas: $8,902 (source)
Texas: $7,142 (source)

Keep in mind that Texas has about 4.3 million children in its public school system, which is almost double our state's entire population. Regardless, hopefully this funding statistic will eventually translate into higher student performance and a change the perception of educational reputation between the school districts in town.