The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” has been a continuing theme in the long debate over public school funding in Indiana, and indications are that nothing is going to change anytime soon.
North Knox superintendent Darrel Bobe pointed out the other night that while the biennial state budget proposed by House Republicans does add some $300 million to the line item for public education, that doesn’t necessarily mean all schools would get a boost in their general funds next year.
After two years of harmful cuts, money may be coming back to public schools, but it’ll be the same old story in how those funds get distributed.
Taking a random sampling of schools that did stand to see an increase in state support against those which, like North Knox, would actually get less money than they now do, Bobe noticed a trend: Larger corporations would get increases in funding, smaller schools wouldn’t.
Which, he pointed out, really isn’t anything new.
Well before the state assumed complete responsibility for schools’ general funds there were marked discrepancies between how much state support some districts received compared to others.
While the amount of state support per student might average $5,000 statewide, that didn’t mean every public school received exactly that amount per student when the check arrived in the mail.
There were always differences, in some cases significant amounts, between what the larger, suburban school corporations received per student and what smaller, rural schools and predominantly inner-city schools got.
Why that’s been the case is hard to discern. Understanding the school-funding formula seems, to us, impossible, it having all the clarity of mud.
The world’s had better success mapping the human genome than we’ve had in getting a clear understanding of that enigma wrapped in a riddle surrounded by mystery that is the formula for stipulating how tax dollars get allocated to public schools.
And those who did try to explain why there were such differences in per-student allocations often ended only further confusing their audiences, eventually resorting to a shrug of their shoulders as if to say, “It is what it is.”
It’s wrong is what it is.
There was talk back when the state was advocating taking responsibility for schools’ general funds that such unequal distribution of state support would be smoothed out; while the funding per student wouldn’t be exactly equal the assumption was it would become less unequal over time.
That hasn’t happened.
Public education is the cornerstone to our success, as a community, as a state and as a country.
Our place in the world largely depends on what success we have in providing quality learning opportunities to each Hoosier, regardless of their parents’ address.
What state funding is provided the public schools needs to be not just adequate but also equal, and we’d argue that, over the years, it’s been neither, and that recently it has grown progressively unequal as well as decidedly inadequate to our needs.
House Bill 1001, the budget bill, does add money for public education, but not enough money, and that not distributed equally.
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