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by David Safier

Based on TUSD proposed funding formulas Board President Mark Stegeman included in his recent constituent newsletter, schools with lower income students will receive less money to spend on teachers than schools with higher income students. (Download School budget formulas 2012-13)

This is a serious equity issue which is not exclusive to TUSD. It happens in school district funding formulas across the country and has been the subject of a great deal of serious examination. It will take some explaining, so if you're interested, bear with me.

There are two basic ways to fund teachers at individual schools.

1. Make sure all schools have a more-or-less equal number of staff members per student. That would mean, for example, every elementary school has one teacher for every 26 students.
2. Make sure each school has the same funding per student for teachers. That would mean allocating, for example, $2000 per student to hire teachers. [I imagine the actual figure is higher than $2,000, but the idea is the same.]

The first funding formula creates equality in the teacher/student ratio. The second creates a dollar-for-dollar equality.

It looks like TUSD goes for the former: making sure each school has more-or-less the same ratio of teachers to students. That usually means, schools with higher income students receive more funding than schools with lower income students, because the former tend to have more experienced teachers — and therefore teachers with higher salaries — than the latter. Here's why.

In general, teachers tend to stay longer at the schools with the "better" — meaning higher income — students, because, let's face it, they're easier to teach than lower income students. There tend to be fewer family problems, fewer discipline problems, lower absentee rates, higher motivation, etc. Teachers tend to leave schools with the more difficult — meaning lower income — students because of the problems which make it so much harder and more frustrating to teach there. Some teachers at schools with lower income students make yearly transfer requests until they finally move to the schools with "better" students. Others simply give up and leave the profession. In each case, new teachers are brought in to replace them.

Consequently, schools with low income students have, on average, less experienced teachers than schools with higher income students. And, since less experienced teachers are also lower on the pay scale, that means schools with lower income students spend less money to reach that 26-to-1 ratio than schools with higher income students.

(Continue reading below the fold.)