State gets ‘B’ in School Funding (WI)

October 13, 2010

Wisconsin gets relatively high marks for overall spending on public education, but not for ensuring that students in high-poverty schools receive the resources they need to succeed academically, according to a new report ranking all 50 states.

The study, conducted by researchers from Rutgers University and th e Education Law Center, gave Wisconsin a "B" for its effort in funding public schools, as measured by the percentage of the state’s Gross Domestic Product spent on education. That grade dropped to a "C" when Wisconsin was measured in terms of distributing those dollars to help students in high-poverty schools.

The new report relied on data from 2005 to 2007, before most state and local budgets were hit by the recession. As a result, the report’s conclusions could understate the current funding problems facing schools that serve low-income students.

Over the last year in Wisconsin, the state reduced assistance to public schools flowing through its equalization aid formula, which is meant to help reduce disparities in school spending between poor and affluent communities.

"We’re moving into a crisis," said Tom Beebe, executive director for the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, which is calling for a one-cent increase in the state sales tax to help fund public education.

"In Wisconsin, we know what has happened since 2007-’08," he said. "And when you look at where the school funding system is going, there’s only going to be a growing disparity between the state funding and the cost of quality education."

According to the study, the average state and local per-pupil revenue for Wisconsin schools was slightly higher than the national average – $10,999 vs. $10,469 – as well as higher than researchers had predicted using measures such as student poverty, regional wages and population density, according to the study.

Where the state did less well was how those dollars were distributed between schools serving different levels of stude nts in poverty.

Nationwide, only 14 states were found to have "progressive" funding systems that provided greater resources to high-poverty districts than to low-poverty districts. Twenty states had "regressive" funding systems that sent more local and state revenue to low-poverty than to high-poverty districts.

Wisconsin was one of 14 states determined to have "flat" systems with no appreciable difference in funding between low- and high-poverty districts.

According to the report, per-pupil spending by Wisconsin schools serving at least 30% low-income students – $10,367 – was less than in schools serving lower percentages of impoverished students.

The amount of per-pupil spending by the state’s schools escalated as poverty levels drop, reaching an average of $10,813 at schools with zero poverty levels, researchers found for the studied time period.