A Global Perspective in Policies for Funding Basic Education and Implications for California’s Public Education Funding Policies
When it comes to education and funding in the United States, what often comes to mind are the popular campaign slogans and proposals of progressive politicians: free college; cancel student debt. The premium on higher education is certainly straining the potential of the United States and its population to compete with foreign nations, however, while the premium on higher education is of great importance to resolve, the paramount issue of funding and educational outcomes at the secondary school level is significant, more so for schools that have a sizeable number of students that are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Nowhere can vast inequalities in the outcome in education be seen other than in California, a state with a diverse student population — a quarter which are considered English Language Learners — and rife with wealth inequality, hence the need for reform and possibly federal intervention in funding to ensure equal opportunity in an increasingly hypercompetitive global knowledge economy.
Within the state of California, many reforms have taken place since the 1970s in order to make funding per-pupil more equal across and within districts. Julien Lafortune lays it out clearly in his report, covering that the 1971 California Supreme Court declared the state’s public education funding system unconstitutional in Serrano v. Priest, prompting the state to construct a funding system that would cap the amount local property tax that each district could direct towards school funding (5). Despite equalizing funding, it is important to point out that limiting the amount of funding public schools are available to receive results in more harm than good. The harm became evident when Proposition 13 was passed by voters in 1978, which “placed a cap on property tax rates and restricted annual increases on property value,” (Marine, Boser) which left states with no other option than to rely on a “shrinking pot of money” to fund schools throughout the state (Semuels). These neoliberal market reforms, the cutting taxes to favor financial powers, are important as they result in the defunding of school districts throughout California, thus impairing the quality of education and livelihood for millions of people. Moreover, although California has reformed its public education system in recent years, as will be discussed and analyzed later in this essay given its weight, it is imperative that the federal government becomes involved in the public education system because of the need to rectify inequalities that serve as a barrier to students of less than enviable socioeconomic backgrounds.
Americans still widely and largely believe that the federal government funds approximately one-third of public education, yet that could not be further away from the truth, as the federal government only funds about ten percent the cost of public education, a study with similar findings was noted in Pasachoff’s report as well. In California, the federal government covers roughly ten percent of school funding, with the state and local governments covering roughly forty-five percent each for school districts, granted, the state delivers more funds districts which lack the local property taxes in order to equalize funding (Murphy, Paluch). This is largely what’s at play in California and in many other states, but I’d like to emphasize California particularly for its decline in public school performance, much which seems to be a consequence of improper reform, lack of funding, and improper resource management — hence, the importance of involving the federal government more in public education.
As mentioned earlier, the performance of California’s public schools has declined or remained stagnant over the course of a few decades following the decision made in Serrano v, Priest, California, despite holding “…the highest GDP of any state, California ranks 41st in per-student funding, 45th in the percentage of taxable revenue spent of education, 45th in student teacher ratios and 48th in the number of staff per student,” (Flint). Regardless of California’s efforts to reform its public education funding system, whether it be the passing of Proposition 98, which set that the minimum spending requirements allotted for public education in California to 40 percent of the General Fund (Lafortune 5), which is highly dependent on the “revenues and economic climate” (Johnson 5). For those that know recent U.S. history, the Great Recession did not bode well for anyone or anything, including California’s General Fund as it is highly dependent on income taxes. As a result California’s public schools suffered a loss in funding after spending of the general fund was reduced by a few billion dollars, with per-pupil spending decreasing by 23% following half a decade after the Great Recession (Murphy, Paluch). Undoubtedly, should a recession of that magnitude happen again, students, especially those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, would bear the brunt of the damage as staff would be cut and student to teacher ratios would increase. Accordingly, a federal program, one that intervenes on a larger scale than Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
The reason why a federal program is necessary is not so much because a state is incompetent with policies it implements to fund their services, but it’s centered on the fact that the federal government can run a deficit in its spending, while states and cities cannot. This supports the notion that the federal government should have a role in not only equalizing funding but use its ability to deficit spend to over-fund schools that are composed of a student bodies that are classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, so that, even during times of great economic distress, student quality of education won’t be affected. The idea of government intervention in public education is not far-fetched, as Martin and Boser explain in their paper regarding former President Johnson’s signing into law the ESEA which sought to promote “quality and equality” in the education of young people via federal funding, more specifically assisting schools with a significant amount of socioeconomically disadvantaged students through Title I funding. Moreover, Semuels goes on to discuss how ESEA was re-authorized with the passage of NCLB and the subsequent rally against federal intervention in public education, as “schools struggled to keep up with testing requirements and progress reports.” Although NCLB sought to address disparities in the quality of education between schools by increasing federal funding and making disparities transparent, it quickly earned the ire of many. However, just because NCLB wasn’t a clear victory, it demonstrated the ability of the government to increase funding to public schools, something vitally needed in California.
President Johnson’s signing into law the ESEA, promoting the need for quality and equality in the nations education system, and subsequent federal laws don’t address the important matter regarding the United States lack of fundamental commitment to the education of its citizens at a federal level. The importance of a federal commitment to pre-tertiary education can be found by looking at other countries outperforming the United States on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) which “… is a study of 15-year-old students’ performance in reading, mathematics, and science literacy conducted every 3 years.” Countries such as Finland, Singapore, and Poland have their students perform significantly better than the United States, which raises the question, would federal involvement in the United States public education system assist in providing a quality education that closes the notable achievement gap between students in the United States?
Finland’s history demonstrates that a positive change in the quality of education is indeed possible. According to Tung, a graduate and writer of Stanford, Finland’s system of education wasn’t always as successful as it is now, with it being one of the lower achieving countries in all of Europe. What changed was Finland’s federal government addressing the issue, as it had promised in Section 16 of its Constitution to ensure that “‘Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge’ and this right guarantees citizens ‘the opportunity to develop themselves without being prevented by economic hardship,’” (Dickinson). By enshrining education, Finland’s government is communicating that a quality education at the pre-tertiary level is a priority. If the U.S. federal government took that leap of faith to commit to its citizenry a quality public education for all people in its Constitution, then it could ignite the change and outcomes desired of education for many of its struggling students, who often lack the guidance and support that they need to succeed as I witnessed firsthand as a teacher’s assistant for a remedial algebra class at my high school.
Unfortunately, the U.S. federal government has long held the view that public education is a duty unto which the states are mainly responsible for, the passage of recent laws prove that it is capable of intervening in states education standards and funding in a beneficial way. In 2015, with the passage of the ESSA law, it did exactly that, by providing “…states and local school districts with supplemental funding to help address the particular needs of economically disadvantaged students,” (Heise 151) specifically by changing federal funding provided to states to block grants that states can control to direct funding to specific programs within the state that better accommodate socioeconomically disadvantaged students. On the other hand, a significant number of developed countries don’t spend as much per-pupil as here in the U.S., so more funding may not actually have a significant effect on closing the gap between students.
When considering a global perspective, we can see that the United States spent roughly $16,000 per-pupil in 2017 according to Rushe, a writer for The Guardian, with Canada, Germany, Finland, and South Korea following respectively, each spending thousands less per-pupil than the U.S. while achieving a higher quality of education. To add on, there is a research that the benefit of spending more on per-pupil funding lacks a strong connection with achievement (Chun 52–54). Even more disruptive to any presumptions held, even if notionally, is that California was spending about 90% more per-pupil than is actually reported, the discrepancy reaching about $25,000 per-pupil in Los Angeles County, several thousand off of what was reported (Chun 55). This paints a stark difference with Finland, a country that is five million strong, only spending around $10,000 per-pupil (Rushe). Likewise, Singapore spends around $10,000 per-pupil in basic education, and according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Poland spends roughly $6,000 per-pupil in basic education, significantly lower than most other countries, yet it performs among the top in the quality of basic public education if the PISA results from the last decade are to be taken into consideration, granted, PISA only assess fifteen year old students every three years and does not convey the other underlying factors that could be affecting test results, such as rampant poverty in inner-cities, familial troubles, lingering racist policies that still haunt the layout of many cities, and other prominent issues. Even so, a test can still be a good standard to measure improvement within a country. On the contrary, Finland prides itself on not requiring students to take standardized tests, instead it uses “… school-made summative and diagnostic assessments to see where a student needs more help to be able to become successful,” (Matias 22), all the while not using the scores to compare students or different schools, but to cater to individual students who are struggling. However, such a system is only possible because on the best of the best are hired to be teachers in Finland, as it is seen as a high prestige career, whereas in the U.S. we’re all familiar with the saying “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” which is meant to disparage educators for having what is considered a low-prestige career in the U.S., but I digress. What Finland, Singapore, and Poland have in common is the national government funding a significant portion of their municipality’s public basic education, with the remaining costs usually being supplemented by the municipality, as is the case in Finland and Poland, or with Singapore’s more centralized system where funding is primarily received from the national government. In all cases, the governments determine the amount of funds to give based on the number of students and the number of students who fall under a plethora of categories that indicate need for extra support.
Similarly, the passage of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) in 2013 in the California legislature allowed for the more equitable distribution of funds to disadvantaged districts by giving “… districts greater spending flexibility, with the consolidation of many categorical aid programs — which fund specific areas or services — into unrestricted block grants,” (Lafortune). The significance of this being that it is easier for districts to invest in what they best see fit for their students, just as the other countries mentioned earlier did in order to raise the outcome of education for all of their students. More importantly, the concentration grants that go to districts with a high need, “… low income, English Learners, homeless, and/or foster youth,” (Lafortune) student body that is fifty-five percent and above. This is important because it directs more money to students that attend districts where the resources necessary for cultivating success in the modern world are not all present. Furthermore, the LCFF also resulted in the construction of a school accountability system to track and analyze school performance.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the school accountability system is encouraging when cross-referencing it with other systems, such as the California Department of Education’s Data Quest or Additional Reports and Data. I mention this because, while the school accountability system may be a good way to analyze other factors besides funding that could be affecting a quality return on secondary education, it can serve to mask inadequacies in schools, such as I believe I saw with the school I attended after comparing it with the more affluent and academically renowned schools located a few miles away, where despite the lackluster academic performance on Advance Placement Tests and National College Tests, the school I attended is depicted as performing well by the “college/career” metric. Although tests have their biases, they are largely one of the only methods available to tell if students are prepared for a more rigorous academic journey, at least in comparison to the manner in which the accountability system in California works.
More importantly, in order to genuinely be successful in transforming the funding of education in California, and the U.S. in general, the U.S. Supreme Court would have to side with a plaintiff suing the U.S. federal government for not ensuring funding that addresses disparities between different public schools and school districts, as many school districts in the U.S. still receive their funding from property taxes, which as we know, disproportionately favors one group of people over another, perpetuating inequality in the quality of education that is able to be obtained at public institutions. By making education a federal matter, the U.S. would be able to invest into the areas of education that are significant in producing the critical thinkers necessary to keep the U.S. dominant in an increasingly competitive world, otherwise the U.S. will be wasting previous time as a result of students having to learn/relearn the basic necessary to achieve a higher education while in higher education, which is not productive (nor cheap given how long most students take to receive their bachelor’s degree on average).
With California having just recovered its public education funding levels from the Great Recession, and the implementation of laws that serve to best help disadvantaged students, it’s only a matter of time before we see the extent to which funding leads to academic success in public schools in California, and the U.S. in general, otherwise the future of the knowledge based economy that Americans have dominated for the past half-century may be ceded to the East, yet, I think such a conclusion is exaggerated, while education should be an important measure with how the U.S. and California rank in the world, it’s of greater importance to recognize how a quality education can serve as a vehicle to freedom, therefore, the U.S. telos for intervening with public education funding and policy should to be to ensure to make the best of every student while not succumbing to a game of numbers, which is to say, money shouldn’t be the main concern, but neither should test scores.
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