The oversimplified message
Fair funding is among a plethora of causes and sales pitches filling the airwaves and the internet.
Almost everyone including poor people has a smart phone in
hand, providing a steady stream of information from everyone in the
world whos trying to tell you something or sell you something.
To get through, a message has to be simple.
Not unless they repeal the law of nature that gives us only 24 hours in a day will they find a way to stuff more into the mind, point out advertising experts Al Ries and Jack Trout.
The mind, as a defense against the volume of todays communications, screens and rejects much of the information offered to it. In general, the mind accepts only that
which matches prior knowledge or experience.
Once a mind is made up, its almost impossible to change it. Dont confuse me with the facts, my minds made up. Thats a way of life for most people.
The best approach in an overcommunicated society, the expert advises, is the oversimplified message.
You have to jettison the ambiguities, simplify the message and then
simplify it some more if you want to make a long-lasting impression. Fair funding is a good example. For decades, the public school community has complained its underfunded, even though education spending has increased at triple the
rate of inflation since the 1960s.
Pennsylvania, like all states, provides subsidies to local school districts. But its one of the lowest overall subsidies in the nation just 35 percent of total school spending. Local taxpayers pay the rest.
Pennsylvania has always given more money per pupil to poor school districts than affluent ones. But in 2016, the state revised its funding formula. The new formula gives more money to 137 school districts and less money to 363 districts based on a variety of factors. But the formula hasnt been fully implemented.
Because Pottstown would get a lot more money under the new formula, about $11 million Pottstowns administrators and school board have been campaigning mightily for its full implementation.
In doing so, theyve oversimplified the message.
Poor districts are underfunded. If we had more money to spend, we could do much more to boost student outcomes.
But extra millions arent going to solve our educational problems. Beyond a certain base amount, theres no evidence that higher spending boosts student achievement.
At $40,000 per pupil, the Aliquippa School District in western Pennsylvania is the highest spending school district in the state. Its also one of the poorest. Its results are even worse than poverty-stricken Reading, one of the lowest spending school districts in the state at $15,000 per pupil.
Fair funding would be great. But theres no panacea, and rethinking educational practices would be more
effective than a spending spree.