School funding study advised

The Arkansas House and Senate Education committees on Monday formally accepted a report from a consultant recommending that they conduct a largerscale study of public school funding every six to 10 years and develop a legislative task force to investigate and address the outof-school factors inhibiting performance for high-need students.

Additional recommendations included in the consultant’s report were that the committees:

• Create an incentive structure to increase the number of highly qualified teachers at small and high- need schools.

• Consider revising the funding formula for students in high- poverty school districts.

• Address discrepancies in teacher quality among schools.

• Reconsider current resource levels in several parts of the school-funding formula.

• Adopt a new definition of career readiness.

The committees also approved an additional recommendation from Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers, that the professional learning communities concept be considered an integral component of adequacy and that higher education institutions in the state incorporate them into their curriculum for elementary and secondary education degrees.

The professional learning

communities concept was approved by the Legislature in 2017 and is in use in several dozen public schools. It is a third-party program that encourages teachers to work together as a team on educating students.

The report was put together and first presented to the committees in November by the Denver-based consulting firm Augenblick, Palaich and Associates. The Arkansas Legislative Council approved a $659,580 consulting contract with the firm late last year.

The report marks the state’s first comprehensive study of public school funding since 2003, after the Arkansas Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee, which deemed the state’s school-funding model unconstitutional.

The 2003 study led to the creation of the education committees’ biennial adequacy review, which the governor and the General Assembly use to make education spending recommendations.

In addition to reviewing school funding adequacy every two years, Arkansas should conduct a larger-scale study using at least two adequacy approaches every six to 10 years, the firm said.

House committee Chairman Bruce Cozart, R- Hot Springs, said legislation would be needed to enact the recommendations.

Looking at class sizes will require a lot of research, but work on other recommendations, such as creating a task force focused on high-need students, could start during the legislative session beginning in January, he said. The 93rd General Assembly’s regular session starts Jan. 11.

Committee member Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said she saw the task force as “one of the most pressing things we need to think about.”

The full report can be found at: https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Calendars/Attachment? committee=810&agenda=3658&file=Exhibit+D+-+Recommendations+(updated).pdf