School Finance Reform

1. School Finance Reform Tyler ISD School Board By Cathy Sullivan

2. Influence • The influence of school board members goes beyond voting at monthly meetings; their decisions, good or bad, make a direct impact on not only the schools but on the community especially on issues regarding finances.

3. ADA—Average Daily Attendance AYP—Adequate Yearly Progress GTB—Guaranteed Tax Base IDEA—Individuals with Disabilities Education Act NCLB—No Child Left Behind Title I—Financial ‘Assistance’ for Low Income Schools Pertinent Terminology

4. Historical Legal Issues • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • Brown v. Board of Education (1951) • Title I (1965) • San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez (1968) • Edgewood ISD v. Kirby (1984) • No Child Left Behind (2001)

5. Plessy v. Ferguson • The US Supreme Court ok’d racial segregation and coined the now infamous phrase ‘separate but equal’.

6. Brown v. Board of Education Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and led Alabama Governor, George Wallace, to personally block the enrollment of African Americans as they attempted to enroll at the University of Alabama.

7. Title I Funds • Given to schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families. These schools are usually high in minorities.

8. San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez • A prime example of financial inequity. This was a landmark decision that stated that education is a fundamental right and that the financing system was subject to strict scrutiny.

9. Edgewood ISD v. Kirby • An extremely poor school district in San Antonio filed suit against the Commission of Education, William Kirby. This was the beginning of ‘Robin Hood’.

10. No Child Left Behind • No Child Left Behind requires all public schools to administer a state-wide standardized test annually to all students. Schools which receive Title I funding must make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in test scores. • If a Title I school fails to make Adequate Yearly Progress, then it is put on a list of "failing schools" published in the local paper and parents are given the option to transfer to another school. If it does not meet AYP for a second year, then it must provide special tutoring for its economically disadvantaged students.

11. Continuing Challenges • Republicans and Democrats continue to disagree on any and all issues of reform. • Districts with more than one high school will unfortunately have one of them labeled a ‘good’ school and the other one ‘bad’ like what has happened with Tyler.

12. Tale of Two High Schools • John Tyler in the north has been labeled a ‘bad’ school because of its high dropout rate and high number of minorities. • Robert E. Lee in the south has the distinguished ‘good’ reputation even though it had to overcome more hurdles than John Tyler to achieve AYP.

13. President Obama’s Stimulus Package Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, will help allocate the $140 Billion earmarked for education.

14. Education Earmark • Texas Governor, Rick Perry, has reservations about accepting funds from the stimulus package of which 61% of the $16 million from the stimulus package will go towards education.

15. School Board Members Can Be Effective Leaders • Stand on principles and base their actions on those principles.

16. References • Odden, Allan. (1998). Creating School Finance Policies That Facilitate New Goals. CPRE Policy Brief (RB-26). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, Consortium for Policy Research in Education. • Odden, Allan. (1992). Discovering Educational Productivity: An Organizational Approach. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , 14(4), 303-306. • Odden, Allan. (1994). Including School Finance in Systemic Reform Strategies: A Commentary. CPRE Finance Brief . New Brunswick: Rutgers University, Consortium for Policy Research in Education. • Odden, Allan. (2001). Introduction to Special Section on School Reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 83 (1), 59-61. With Susan Fuhrman. • Odden, Allan. (1998). Improving State School Finance Systems: New Realities Create Need to Re-Engineer School Finance Structures. (CPRE Occasional Paper Series OP-04). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education. Consortium for Policy Research in Education. • Odden, Allan. (2001). The New School Finance. Phi Delta Kappan, 83 (1), 85-91.

17. References Odden, Allan. (2000). The New School Finance: Providing Adequacy and Improving Equity. Journal of Education Finance . 25(4), 467-487. Odden, Allan. (1999). Repositioning School Finance: Providing Adequacy and Improving Equity. In Barbara A. Nye and Gary L. Peevely (Eds.), Education Funding Adequacy; Equity in the Next Millennium: Conference Proceedings , (pp. 1-33). Nashville, TN: Tennessee State University. Odden, Allan. (1992). School Finance in the 1990s. In Allan Odden (Ed.), Rethinking School Finance: An Agenda for the 1990s (pp.1-40). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (Also Phi Delta Kappan 73, (No. 6, February): 455-461). Odden, Allan. (1993). School Finance Reform In Kentucky, New Jersey and Texas. Journal of Education Finance , 18(4), 293-317. Odden, A.R., Sarah Archibald, & Mark Fermanich. (2003). Rethinking the Finance System for Improved Student Achievement. In W.L. Boyd & D. Miretzky (Eds.), American Educational Governance on Trial: Change and Challenges, (p. 82-113), 102nd Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

18. References Odden, Allan, Carolyn Busch, & Linda Hertert. (1996). The Intricacies of Reforming School Finance and Providing Property Tax Relief in Wisconsin. Journal of Education Finance , 21 (3), pp 321-342. Odden, Allan & William Clune. (1995). Improving Educational Productivity and School Finance. Educational Researcher , 24(9), 6-10, 22. Odden, Allan & William Clune. (1998). School Finance Systems: Aging Structures In Need of Renovation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , 20(3), 157-177. Odden, Allan, & Lawrence O. Picus. (1992). School Finance: A Policy Perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill. Odden, Allan, & Lawrence O. Picus. (2000). School Finance: A Policy Perspective (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Odden, Allan, & Lawrence Picus. (2004). School Finance: A Policy Perspective (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Odden, Allan, & Lawrence Picus. (2007). School Finance: A Policy Perspective (4th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.

19. References Picus, Lawrence O. (1994). The Local Impact of School Finance Reform in Four Texas School Districts. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , 14(4), 391-404. Picus, Lawrence O. & Linda Hertert. (1992). Three Strikes and You're Out: School Finance after Edgewood III. Journal of Education Finance , 18(3), 366-389. Picus, Lawrence O., Odden, Allan, & Fermanich, Mark. (2004). Assessing the Equity of Kentucky's SEEK Formula: A 10-Year Analysis. Journal of Education Finance, 29(4), 315-336. Picus, Lawrence O. & Laurence Toenjes. (1994). Texas School Finance: Assessing the Impact of Multiple Reforms. Journal of Texas Public Education , 2(3), 39-62. Soltero, Carlos R. (2006). "San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez (1973) and the search for equality in school funding". Latinos and American Law: Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 77–94.  Sutton, Jeffrey S. (2008). "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez and Its Aftermath". Virginia Law Review94 (8): 1963–1986.