The CPRE Wisconsin School Finance Adequacy Initiative: K-12 Education Today

1. The CPRE Wisconsin School Finance Adequacy Initiative: K-12 Education Today Allan Odden Anabel Aportela, Sarah Archibald, and Michael Goetz Consortium for Policy Research in Education July 13, 2005

2. Introductions

3. Our Goal • To conduct a school finance adequacy study, or what the Doyle Commission called, a “cost-out” study • How much money per pupil is needed to educate students to Wisconsin’s proficiency standards? • There are many more details, but the above is the core of our Initiative

4. What We Will Produce … • We will produce a per pupil number, with adjustments for varying pupil needs, and school and district contexts • We will show how this would work in a foundation school finance formula, that is funded with a combination of state and local dollars, and allows any district to spend above the foundation expenditure level if it wants to – no limits on spending

5. What We Will Produce … • We intend to build to a foundation level by showing resources for each school in the state, and … • We will have on our web site our proposed resources for every school in the state – or most schools

6. Comparisons to Current Resources • You will probably want to know how what we will propose for each school compares with current resources • Very hard to do because we do not have school level resource data, and very hard even if we did • We would be willing to collect resources for a range of schools in a range of districts, if we had volunteers from the Task Force – would require about 1 day of work with us per school

7. Roles

8. Roles of the Task Force • Understand what we are doing and communicate to/with their constituencies • Contextualize our approach to Wisconsin • Add important Wisconsin information, perspective • Tailor the recommendations to Wisconsin and its school system • Raise issues we may have overlooked

9. Roles of our Policy Analyst Advisors • Be our “critical friends” • Critique and help us improve our analyses • Provide additional insight from their own research and experiences • Keep us honest • Help us maintain our credibility with the Wisconsin education policy analysis community

10. Roles of the Work Group • Help us find our way through the thicket of Wisconsin SF data • Insure that our analyses use the right data and are on target • Help maintain good and clear communication between our UW-CPRE group and the key state agencies that conduct the official school finance analyses for the state

11. Task Force Members’ Concerns and Issues Related to Wisconsin School Finance Adequacy

12. Agenda • Context of Wisconsin Education, Spending and Teacher Salaries • Wisconsin Student Achievement • Current School Finance System • Equity Analysis • Previous Wisconsin Adequacy Studies • Our Approach to Wisconsin Adequacy

13. 1. Wisconsin Context

14. Wisconsin State Population Since 1995 Increase of 8.45% since 1995 Source: Department of Administration, State of Wisconsin

15. Population Growth Unevenly Distributed • Most growth is in four areas: • The counties around Hudson, which are becoming “commuting” communities for the Twin Cities • Dane County and surrounding counties • SE Wisconsin, which is becoming more of a “commuting” community for the greater Chicago area • In and around Green Bay

16. Percent Population Growth Since 1995Top 20 Counties

17. Wisconsin Student Population Since 1995 Increase of 2.26% since 1995 Source: Department of Public Instruction, State of Wisconsin

18. School Districts in Declining Enrollment

19. Number of School Districts byTotal Enrollment, 2004 30% of Enrollment 30% of Enrollment Source: Department of Public Instruction, State of Wisconsin

20. Student Enrollment and Diversity Source: Department of Public Instruction, State of Wisconsin

21. WI v. National School Finance:Change in Real Exp. Per Pupil

22. WI v. Nation: Expenditures

23. Wisconsin Per Pupil Expenditures1995-2005

24. Wisconsin Personal Income1995-2005

25. Percent Changes in Personal Income and Per Pupil Expenditures

26. Increase in Expenditures Per pupil v. Increases in Personal Income Per Capita • Annual increases in expenditures per pupil and Wisconsin personal income per capita tracked each other quite well from 1996 to 2001 • After that, expenditures grew at a faster pace than personal income, but that divergence began to change in 2005, though we have only estimated data for 2005

27. Wisconsin and Surrounding StatesPer Pupil Expenditures, 2004-2005

28. WI v. Nation: Teacher Salaries

29. National Average Teacher Salaries1997-2003

30. Wisconsin Average Teacher SalariesV. National Average 1997-2003

31. Wisconsin Average Teacher Salariesv. Surrounding States 1997-2003

32. 2. Student Achievement

33. Major Trends in Achievement • Scores on Wisconsin’s state tests in terms of % at or above proficiency are twice as high as on the NAEP tests, which have a common national standard • Student test scores have not changed dramatically over the past 5-10 years • About 80% of students score at or above proficiency on state tests and about 1/3 on NAEP tests

34. Major Trends in Achievement • Yes, Wisconsin is above the national average, but the nation on average is educating only about 30% of students to or above proficiency • Using a rigorous national standard, Wisconsin has a long way to go to educate 80%+ students to or above proficiency • According to the Education Trust, Wisconsin’s success with minority students is not good and the statewide achievement gap worsens from elementary, to middle to high school

35. Wisconsin 3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Test1999-2004 Source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

36. National Assessment of Educational ProgressGrade 4 Reading1992-2003 Source: NAEP

37. National Assessment of Educational ProgressGrade 4 Reading 2003

38. WKCE/WAA CombinedGrade 4 Mathematics2002-2004 Source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

39. National Assessment of Educational ProgressGrade 4 Mathematics1992-2003 Source: NAEP

40. NAEP Mathematics Percent at or Above Proficient Grade 4

41. WKCE/WAA CombinedGrade 8 Reading2002-2004 Source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

42. National Assessment of Educational ProgressGrade 8 Reading1998-2003 Source: NAEP

43. NAEP Reading Percent at or Above Proficient Grade 8

44. WKCE/WAA CombinedGrade 8 Mathematics2002-2004 Source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

45. National Assessment of Educational ProgressGrade 8 Mathematics1990-2003 Source: NAEP

46. NAEP Mathematics Percent at or Above Proficient Grade 8

47. WKCE/WAA CombinedGrade 10 Mathematics2002-2004 Source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

48. WKCE/WAA CombinedGrade 10 Reading2002-2004 Source: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

49. 3. Current Wisconsin Finance System

50. Wisconsin School Finance Structure2004-05 • Tier 1: Focus here is property tax relief for all districts • Primary Guarantee: GTB of $1.93 million for first $1,000 of spending; this requires about a 0.52 mill tax rate • Tier 2: • Secondary Guarantee: GTB of around 98th percentile, but varies with funding level – estimated at $1,006,510 for 2004-05 • Secondary Cost Ceiling: For spending up to a set level, that increased by law about $200-$400 each year; now set at 90% of statewide average shared cost per pupil– about $7,782 for 2004-05, or 6.74 mills • Almost all districts have shared costs today above the secondary cost ceiling, a fact that was not true in the 1990s as a later slide will show • So total mills for Tier 1 and Tier 2 is 7.26 • Tier 3: • Tertiary Guarantee: GTB at state average: about $407,300 for 2004-05 • No spending ceiling, and no penalty for districts with assessed value at or below the secondary guarantee • But for districts with wealth above that, negative aid that reduces Tier 2 aid at most down to zero; Tier 1 aid stays the same and by law cannot be reduced by negative aid in Tier 3