Biloxi Sun Herald Logo

Formula for funding is not all public schools, students need | Biloxi Sun Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Customer Service
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Archives
    • Buy Photos and Pages
    • Contact Us
    • Plus
    • Newsletters
    • Newspaper in Education
    • Subscribe
    • Subscriber Services

    • News
    • Local News
    • Communities
    • Cruisin The Coast
    • Latest News
    • Business
    • Casinos
    • Crime
    • DIPG
    • DHS
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Weather
    • State
    • Nation & World
    • By the Way
    • Hurricane Katrina
    • Sports
    • High School
    • Sports Betting
    • Outdoors
    • New Orleans Saints
    • Biloxi Shuckers
    • Southern Miss
    • Mississippi State
    • Ole Miss
    • New Orleans Pelicans
    • Auto Racing
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Keeping Score
    • Patrick Magee
    • Patrick Ochs
    • Rick Cleveland
    • Brian Allee-Walsh
    • Politics
    • Living
    • Religion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Marquee
    • Calendar
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Ask the Expert
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Entertainment
    • Mardi Gras
    • Arts and Culture
    • Celebrities
    • Comics
    • Dining
    • Horoscopes
    • Framed Photos
    • Movie News & Reviews
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Throwing Shade
    • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • More Opinions
    • Letters
    • Sound Off
    • Cartoons
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Paul Hampton
    • Charlie Mitchell
  • Obituaries

  • Classifieds
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • Place An Ad
  • Mobile & Apps

  • About Us

Charlie Mitchell

Formula for funding is not all public schools, students need

By Charlie Mitchell

cmitchell43@yahoo.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

November 02, 2016 05:00 AM

Interviewed on Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Joyce Helmick made a great point. The topic was the state leadership’s apparent quest to abandon Mississippi’s existing K-12 funding formula, which they have called antiquated and ineffective. Her comment was, “How do we know? It hasn’t been tried.”

Helmick is a veteran classroom teacher who serves as president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, a group often called the “teacher union” and generally loathed in the halls of the Capitol.

But she’s right, of course. To avoid federal intervention due to the disparity of state funds provided to “rich” vs. “poor” districts, the Legislature adopted the Mississippi Adequate Education Program and its equalization formula in 1997. The ploy worked. The feds backed off. Subsequently, in all years except two, the Legislature has declined to provide cash in the amount the formula indicated. Ignoring the formula continued even after the Legislature added stronger wording in 2005.

So now it’s antiquated and ineffective?

SIGN UP

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Sun Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

Horsefeathers.

For a long time, battle lines have been shaping and shifting over public education in Mississippi. Both armies have plenty of ammo.

In late summer, it was revealed that a consultant, EdBuild, had been hired pretty much by Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn — who are not seen as friends of public education — to study Mississippi and come up with ideas.

EdBuild is new and tiny but is fast-building a reputation for aggressive innovation under the leadership of Rebecca Sibilia. Her background includes working as vice president for fiscal strategy with Michele Rhee’s company, StudentsFirst. Rhee became prominent for her take-no-prisoners approach in trying to improve the nation’s most expensive and, by reputation, worst public school district — the one in Washington.

EdBuild will be paid $250,000 to study how Mississippi K-12 money is allocated and spent and follow up with recommendations to the Legislature on how to get more bang for education bucks.

Sibilia’s belief that charter schools have value is well-documented, leading some to conclude the fix is in, that EdBuild will simply say Mississippi must have more charter schools. That will fulfill the decades-long dream ascribed to white Republicans of funneling more public dollars to private schools while poor-performing mostly black public schools are left to rot. Sibilia says that’s not her bent or her record.

The basic question, though, is this basic notion that an objective monetary figure can be calculated to determine definitively whether a child is receiving a good, bad or adequate exposure to education.

Data to support “the more the better” is thin, at best.

The old story is Washington. Rhee was brought in specifically to tackle that district, which was flush with cash but underperforming (to use the polite word) miserably. Not a lot changed and she left in 2010.

The new story is the 2016 Education Report Card issued by the state Department of Education. Ponder this:

▪  The five Mississippi districts that spent the least per pupil scored two A’s and three B’s.

▪  The five Mississippi districts that spent the most per pupil scored four C’s and a D.

Many factors influence per-pupil spending, including the size of the district, the local tax base and such. The range in the state, by the way, is from $7,040 per student in Lincoln County to $18,107 in Clay County.

So what’s Lincoln County doing right that Clay County is doing wrong?

It’s hard to say. Clay County is in north central Mississippi, has a population of 20,500 and a per capita income of $18,300 per year. Lincoln is in south central Mississippi and has 35,000 people and a per capita income of $20,000 — not much higher. Nonwhite populations are 55 percent in Clay and 30 percent in Lincoln. Across the spectrum of demographics, the counties are not remarkably different.

Yet for every dollar spent in the Lincoln district, $2.57 is being spent in the Clay district — with worse outcomes.

It is never wrong to invest in education, but there is so much wrong with concluding more money is the single driver of quality.

Over time in Mississippi and elsewhere, politicians have become increasingly involved with managing local schools from afar. School board members are Jackson-faced, meaning their priority is to hit benchmarks, instead of community-faced, meaning focused on kids and classrooms.

At this point all people sincerely interested in better schools can hope for is a truce.

No formula, in and of itself, results in better schools. But if there were one, it would include the sum of good teachers and facilities, families that value education and communities that support education — and subtract politics.

Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist.

  Comments  

Videos

Southern Miss baseball tops Purdue on walk-off by Matt Guidry

Danny Glover visits Boys & Girls Club on the Mississippi Coast

View More Video

Trending Stories

Mississippi expected 1,000 jobs at a Gulfport shipyard. But the deal is dead.

February 15, 2019 05:00 AM

Coast buffet, diner, golf club, sushi restaurant get critical violations from health dept.

February 14, 2019 12:07 PM

Memorial Hospital at Gulfport says computer breach exposed patients’ personal information

February 15, 2019 04:31 PM

LIVE UPDATES: Southern Miss baseball hosts Purdue

February 15, 2019 04:13 PM

Ocean Springs bar and grill has a new location but same ‘remarkable’ wings and eats

February 15, 2019 05:00 AM

Read Next

Latest News

Informed communities are the best communities. And newspapers are best at informing

By Charlie Mitchell

    ORDER REPRINT →

October 11, 2018 04:59 PM

Newspapers have seen their workforces cut in half by a lot of economic headwind. But, communities where newspapers survive will thrive.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Sun Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE CHARLIE MITCHELL

Charlie Mitchell

What state officials said about not buying Nike products is wrong

September 30, 2018 08:00 AM
Big picture often misses the people holding us together

Charlie Mitchell

Big picture often misses the people holding us together

September 20, 2018 03:01 PM
Mississippi could send a black Democrat to U.S. Senate

Charlie Mitchell

Mississippi could send a black Democrat to U.S. Senate

September 07, 2018 09:38 AM
Lottery is losing some of its luster, especially among millennials

Charlie Mitchell

Lottery is losing some of its luster, especially among millennials

August 31, 2018 11:51 AM
Trump didn’t invent ‘public enemy’ label for the media

Charlie Mitchell

Trump didn’t invent ‘public enemy’ label for the media

August 26, 2018 09:00 AM
Little wiggle room left for the next governor

Charlie Mitchell

Little wiggle room left for the next governor

August 17, 2018 11:42 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Biloxi Sun Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • e-Edition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
  • Special Sections
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Archives
  • Photo Store
Advertising
  • Start Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Place an Obituary
  • Today's Circulars
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story