SCORE: Now is time to update school funds
Tennessee schools will continue to underserve economically disadvantaged students, rural students, students of color and students with disabilities without increased funding and a more targeted way of investing in students’ needs, argues a new report.
One of Tennessee’s most influential school reform advocacy groups, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, or SCORE, laid out the history of education funding and recommendations going forward in a new report released Thursday.
The report comes as lawmakers and The Tennessee Department of Education launch a review process of the state’s current school funding model, the Basic Education Program with the hopes of creating a new weighted student funding model.
As the pandemic worsened outcomes for Tennessee’s students, SCORE representatives began researching the changes that have taken place around education — and noting the funding gaps that have remained.
“Years of data about student outcomes clearly show that the state’s outdated funding system is failing to provide large numbers of Tennessee students with the support they need to reach the state’s academic expectations,” David Mansouri, president and CEO of SCORE, said in a statement. “We need to be refocusing our system to respond to individual student learning needs and preparing all students for college and career.”
The BEP’S shortcomings, Mansouri said, have been heightened recently when looking specifically at outcomes for rural students, students of color, and students with disabilities.
In the decade prior to the pandemic, Tennessee had improved student proficiency rates and college enrollment, but “the K-12 education system underperformed for economically disadvantaged students, students of color, and students with disabilities,” according to the report.
In 2019, Black students were less than half as likely to achieve reading proficiency by third grade than white students, and English learners and students with disabilities both had collegegoing rates that were 27 percentage points lower than the state average.
Economically disadvantaged students were about half as likely to be prepared for life after high school compared to the state average.
But national research shows that increased funding can improve student achievement, high school graduation rates and even life outcomes, especially for students from these historically underserved groups.
“While the state has invested more funding in K-12 education and pursued other improvements, a concerted effort to target state resources to student needs could accelerate the state’s overall academic achievement efforts,” the report argues
Now, SCORE leaders say it is time to “modernize” Tennessee’s education funding formula, especially as the state experiences “unprecedented budget surpluses.”
“Tennessee currently uses a resource-based funding system, which funds things in public schools like salaries, benefits, and technology. A student-based funding formula would be better able to fund students in public schools in a way meets their individual learning needs,” SCORE Senior Director of Research Peter Tang said in a statement.
The report, “Funding for Learning: An Analysis of K-12 Education Finance in Tennessee,” recommends modernizing the state’s education funding formula by:
h Adopting a student-based or weighted-student formula driven by student need, with particular emphasis on the needs of low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities;
h Maintaining significant flexibility at the district level to allow local leaders to use funds to meet their community’s needs;
h Ensuring the formula produces predictable, equitable allocations to districts year-over-year;
h Increasing the amount of funding the state invests in education and establishing a multi-year investment strategy aligned with the state’s goals for students.
The report also highlights the financial needs of college and career education, such as the need for increased advising and coursework options for students, public charter schools’ facilities needs and challenges for rural students.
Find the report online at: tnscore.org /sdm_downloads/funding-for-learning -an-analysis-of-k-12-education -finance-in-tennessee/.
Meghan Mangrum covers education for the USA TODAY Network — Tennessee. Contact her at mmangrum@tennessean.com.