Policy Report
Summary
Ohio's attempts in recent years to correct its unconstitutional school funding system, including the current building blocks model, have failed to connect funding levels to the resources needed to provide an adequate education. Ohio's legislature essentially still works backwards, identifying a pot of money to spend on public schools and then creating a formula to distribute it.
As Ohio again embarks on fixing its school funding system, it is clear that a costing-out model must be a central part of the effort to satisfy the mandates of the DeRolph rulings and public perception. The question then becomes which costing-out model will yield the best result for Ohio.
Four costing-out approaches have been employed in more than 50 studies in at least 38 states since 1991. Of these, the evidence-based model offers Ohio the best opportunity to benefit from an objective, research-rich approach to determine what is needed to provide a thorough and effective education system.
The evidence-based model ensures that research, not the preferences or potential biases of education stakeholders, is at the center of the school funding system. It offers a solid foundation of strategies drawn from schools that have doubled performance. The state should also consider incorporating aspects of the professional judgment approach, allowing any evidence-based study to be more clearly tailored to the state context.
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How could the evidence-based approach be applied in Ohio?
In a recent article for KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Allan Odden and Larry Picus suggested an approach that would focus on the resources it takes to "double" the performance of Ohio's students over the next 4-6 years, rather than what it would take to educate all students to Ohio's proficiency standards.
They wrote, "This goal is still ambitious, though more achievable than the rhetorical goal of educating all students to high standards embedded in Ohio's reforms and most adequacy studies."
This approach would consist of:
1. Reviewing the evidence from research and best practice on what programs work in education, i.e., produce student learning gains.
2. Studying schools and districts that have dramatically increased - what is rhetorically called doubling - the level of student performance over a four- to six-year period.
How much more would an evidence-based approach study cost Ohio?
While evidence-based studies have usually required increases in state education funding, Odden's most recent research, completed for the School Finance Redesign Project and published in the journal Education Finance and Policy, examines national demographic data and national average prices to cost out an evidence-based model that could ensure doubling student performance.
The research found that the total cost of the model is close to the national average expenditure per pupil, meaning that "the nation's investment in K-12 education is almost enough to adequately fund an education program that can double student performance." States spending below the average would likely need additional money for their schools, while those spending above probably would not.
Below is the model that was used as the basis for the 1998 final state Supreme Court decree in the 25-year-old school finance litigation in New Jersey that can serve as an example of how research comes together to create a prototypical school.
The services and ingredients required for adequately funding a school, based on a school of 500 students, were:
- 1 principal
- 2 instructional facilitators, coaches or mentors
- Preschool for three- and four-year-olds, at least for children from lower income backgrounds, with a teacher and an educational assistant for every 15 students
- Teachers for a full-day kindergarten program
- Teachers to provide for class sizes of 15 students in grades K-3 and 25 for all other grades
- An additional 20% of teachers to provide for planning and preparation time for the above teachers and to teach art, music, physical education and other noncore academic classes, with the requirement that a substantial portion of such time be used by regular classroom teachers for collaborative instructional improvement work
- Tutors (professionally licensed teachers) for struggling students, at a rate of one tutor for every 20% of students from low-income backgrounds, with a minimum of one tutor for each school, which should provide sufficient resources to serve slow learners, mildly disabled and/or English language learning students
- Sufficient funds for all severely disabled students
- An additional $2,000 per teacher for the training component of professional development (the above facilitators provide the ongoing coaching within the school)
- About $250 per pupil for computer technologies (hardware and software) to cover purchase, upgrades and repairs
- One to five positions for a pupil support/ family outreach strategy, with one position for each 20% of students from low-income backgrounds, with a minimum of one position
- Other resources for materials, equipment and supplies; operation and maintenance; and clerical/secretarial support.
According to Odden, the funding levels determined here would "allow schools to deploy just about every strategy research has shown to have statistically significant impacts on student learning, and to deploy just about any comprehensive school reform model that exists."21
A variation of this approach was used for Wisconsin (Norman, 2002). This approach was also the basis for a recommendation to the Kentucky State Board of Education (Odden, Fermanich & Picus, 2003) and is the method being used for a Joint Legislative Committee in Arkansas. The most recent work reflecting the evidence-based model was for the state of Washington.
Recommendation:
Employ the evidence-based method to determine an adequate amount of funding in Ohio.
As Ohio again embarks on fixing its school funding system, a costing-out model must be a central part of this effort to satisfy the mandates of the DeRolph rulings and general public perception. Ohio has already attempted the successful schools approach unsuccessfully, falling victim to the adjustments by the legislature, among other shortcomings. Also, like many other states, Ohio lacks the data to perform an effective cost-function study. This leaves two approaches - professional judgment and evidence-based. Of these two, the evidence-based approach offers Ohio the best opportunity to benefit from an objective, research-rich approach to determine what is needed to provide a thorough and effective education system - and then determine the associated costs.
The evidence-based approach ensures that research and evidence, not the preferences or potential biases of education stakeholders, is at the center of any educational components of the school funding system. It offers a solid foundation of recommendations based on proven strategies, drawing its research from various research methods (randomized trials, quasi-experimental designs and meta-analyses) and focusing on results from schools that have doubled performance. This research examines how students learn, what are the resource dimensions of programs that work and how schools that have doubled student performance are using their resources. Additionally, as No Child Left Behind has shifted the focus to evidence-based practices, this approach will help provide the guidance to districts and schools about ‘best practices' and can help ensure accountability.
While the evidence-based approach will offer an objective research-based core, the state should consider whether, when and how to incorporate the professional judgment approach into its school funding fixes. Research has shown that using more than one costing-out approach is beneficial.22 In Arkansas' evidence-based study, two large professional judgment panels were employed to advise the legislature and the consultants about the adequacy of the model to enable students to meet the state's proficiency standards. By incorporating a professional judgment component, any evidence-based study can be more clearly tailored to the state context and help ensure that Ohio has the best estimate possible.