The Ohio Senate is expected to bring out its own school funding plan soon, and undoubtedly, there will continue to be rhetoric about perceived deficiencies in the Ohio Evidence-Based Model that is contained in Governor Strickland's proposal and modified by substitute House Bill 1. (More on substitute House Bill 1.) There is no question that the changes made by the House addressed nearly all of the primary shortcomings in the governor's proposal, which in and of itself made major leaps forward in meeting the school funding crisis in Ohio.
But, either out of differences in politics, policy or practice, some continue to criticize this new school-funding strategy that has now been accepted by both the education community and business leaders. The criticisms seem based on ideological differences, or in some cases, ignorance of what the Ohio Evidence-Based Model (OEBM) does or does not do.
Here, then, are the top 5 myths about the Ohio Evidence-Based Model.
1. It unfairly creates unfunded mandates for school districts.
This myth is an outgrowth of the desire of the governor's office to make sure that tax dollars were used efficiently and effectively to improve academic achievement. The governor's staff knew that the Ohio Evidence-Based Model can't alone compel local educators to rethink how they use their resources to promote improved achievement, and the experience in other states showed that old habits were hard to break and resources were not always spent effectively. So, the governor's office suggested that the components of the OEBM (such as staffing ratios, instructional coaching positions, all-day kindergarten) were not merely mechanisms to calculate funding but were requirements. However, after many complaints and much feedback, the governor's office relented and the House passed a plan that primarily requires only poor-performing schools and districts to meet the spending components and allows the rest to largely keep doing what they are doing as long as they can meet academic goals. That makes sense and will go a long way to ensure dollars are used effectively. Unfortunately, the lingering impression is that mandates still exist.
2. It stifles the creativity and innovation of local educators.
This issue is related to the myth above about unfunded mandates. Some have tried to argue that the OEBM is a cookie-cutter approach that will make all schools the same and not allow for any freedom to try different strategies. That is just wrong. Like the issue about the mandates, all schools will have the resources to follow the educational practices that many other schools across the country have followed to dramatically improve the academic performance of their students. But most schools will also have the freedom to try different strategies to improve performance as long as they are doing so. If the schools are not performing, then the strategies in the OEBM come into play. It should be noted that most of those strategies, like having instructional coaches guide professional development for teachers as they need it during the year and the use of data to guide instructional strategies, are in and of themselves considered innovative and creative for most schools. So it is not as if the schools will be forced to pull out McGuffey Readers and the slate boards to improve instruction.
3. The model is not funded adequately.
The State of Ohio is in a bind. Like most other states, Ohio is facing an unprecedented economic crisis that is similar to the one sweeping the world. Yet, during this crisis, the state and now the federal government are trying to ensure that investments are made in education to help prepare the economy to pull out of the economic doldrums. Gov. Strickland made education a priority in his budget, and President Obama has ensured education gets support by providing billions in stimulus dollars to education stabilization and improvement. Using this one-time money, along with state reserves designated as a "rainy day fund," postpones tough decisions that the state will need to make, some maintain. It also saddles future legislators and state leaders, they say, with a huge hole to fill in the state budget. There is, of course, a reason that the Obama administration and the Congress wanted to postpone that pain by providing dollars now: To avoid sending the economy further into a tailspin with more layoffs and cuts. Part of the requirements for the state receiving stimulus money is that they don't cut their education budget, and in the case of Ohio, Gov. Strickland is tackling school funding reform as well. His option: Phase in the pieces of the reform over time, which seems well reasoned. That seems like the strategy many of us use when, say, we buy a house or car. We pay it out over time.
4. The model favors wealthy districts over poor ones.
The initial proposal from Gov. Strickland was widely misunderstood, partly because the administration tried to show too much on one spreadsheet that outlined how the changes affected specific districts in Ohio. The overall education plan not only changed the funding formulas, but it also changed tax policy. Some components, like central office support, were phased in over time, while the changes in tax policy were not. The result? The tax policy changes resulted in a one-time jump in funding for wealthier districts, which largely overshadowed the more modest increases in funding for less wealthy districts which were to get benefit from the Ohio Evidence-Based Model once it was phased in. The Ohio House made significant changes in this area, phasing in the tax policy changes and speeding up the implementation of some aspects of the funding model. In addition, the House recalculated some of the funding that was targeted to low-wealth district, resulting in additional gains for poor districts.
5. The model funds buildings and teachers, not children.
This is rhetoric coming from those who would prefer a resource distribution system that is advocated by the Fordham Foundation's Fund the Child report. (More on weighted student funding.) The use of this rhetoric is to try to make a distinction that the Fordham system provides funding based on what children need and then provides a "weighted" amount of funding to support that. The comparison, they say, is that the Ohio Evidence-Based Model calculates funding based on average school building enrollments and average teacher salaries. The rhetoric is designed to make the weighted funding system more attractive because it is funding "children" while the evidence-based model is funding "buildings and teachers." Of course, this is a false argument. In fact, the Fund the Child approach is actually a cruel hoax, in that it really does not care if there is enough money for each child to accomplish what is needed. The folks at Fordham are happy to accept, well...whatever money is available, just as long it is weighted for the characteristics (disadvantaged student, or special education student) of that student. In stark contrast, the Evidence-Based Model actually does care whether each child has the resources needed to achieve. The model is built on education strategies that have been shown to produce dramatic gains in student performance in schools and districts across the country. The model in Fund the Child has little research support and evidence that it actually works.
These myths will no doubt resurface in the coming weeks as the Senate proposes its own plan and then debates again what the governor and House proposed. Our hope is that, in the end, enough are is able to separate myth from reality to produce the best school funding and education approach for Ohio's students.