Education formula rewrite doesn’t look good

It seems that every week there is a new excuse for rewriting the education formula — from floppy disks to six districts benefiting from an obsolete clause.

What hasn’t changed is that the discussions on what the new formula will look like are happening behind closed doors. With the news that state budgets will be cut yet again due to revenues not meeting projections, we know that the Legislature is not planning to increase education funding. Frustrated at journalists’ estimations of impacts from the EdBuild proposal, leaders of the House Education Committee have pledged that no district will lose funds compared to the underfunding of the MAEP.

So if districts aren’t going to lose money, and we know they aren’t going to be given more money, what exactly is the point of the MAEP rewrite? My opinion is that the Legislature hates that it can’t control the formula — the formula is data-driven —and neither party has any power to tweak it. But the new formula likely starts with an arbitrary number — conveniently chosen and controlled by the Legislature, with no adjustment for inflation. I predict that if the rewrite goes through, within a couple of years the Legislature will magically fully fund its new education formula.

It doesn’t matter how many ways they spin it. This formula rewrite has nothing to do with helping our children and everything to do with making it more difficult to hold our legislators accountable for the inadequate education spending.

This story was originally published February 12, 2017 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Education formula rewrite doesn’t look good."