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Blog Entry 25 of 28 Life in the St. Vrain

News and commentary on educational issues, especially as they pertain to education in the St. Vrain Valley.

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Fruits of Failurism: More Money, Worse Results

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Contributed by: Brad Jolly on 6/14/2008

There are basically three approaches one can take to funding schools. The elitist approach is to reward top performing schools with extra money. This, of course, takes more money from the lowest performing schools, and tends to lead to a vicious cycle that hurts the poor. As George Will once wrote, the rallying cry of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost is a colorful phrase, but it is lousy social policy. I agree.

I prefer the egalitarian approach, in which each school gets roughly the same amount of money per student from the general fund. The poor schools still get more money from the free and reduced lunch program, various Title I and Title III set-asides, and other programs in the Government Designated Purpose Grant Fund, but at least the general fund money for hiring teachers is even-handed.

Unfortunately, St. Vrain has adopted the failurist approach, in which money is taken from the best schools in a desperate attempt to bring up the scores of the failing schools. The theory is that if we just throw enough money at the low-performing schools, the students will finally close the "achievement gap," and the societal benefits thus created will outweigh the harm done to the students in the high achieving schools.

Unfortunately, as the attached graphic shows, the additional funding does not close the achievement gap.

In this graphic, the horizontal axis is general fund money per student for "teachers, subs, assistants," and "other staff." It does NOT include all of the extra program money the low-performing schools get, money which would make the graphic look even worse. The vertical axis is the average passing rate (Proficient or Advanced) for the four fifth grade CSAP tests - Reading, Writing, Math and Science.

The only two schools outside of the blue arrow are Mountain View and Lyons. They show up in the high cost per student area because they are so small; smaller schools have a larger percentage of fixed costs.

Why is it that throwing huge amounts of money at these schools does not close the performance gap? According to a school board member, "some children come from homes in which 'habits of learning' are passed on intuitively from parent to child. Other children don't develop these 'habits of learning' at home . . ."

By and large, when the "habits of learning" are not in place, achievement tends to flounder, even in the face of massive funding. Rather than penalizing parents who install proper habits into their children by cutting their schools' funding, we ought to be even-handed in the general fund. The low-performing schools would still get more funding from other programs, and the district would not be sending the bizarre message that the way to get more money for your school is to fail to instill the basic "habits of learning" in your children.

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

Submitted By: Brad Jolly

posted on 7/30/2008 @ 10:49:23 PM

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Hi Jo. I agree, it can be complicated. The lunch budget is separate; that is NOT what I am talking about here. By Title I set asides, I do mean federal $$. You are right; federal Title I money goes to economically disadvantaged schools, and I am OK with that. My concern is the inequity within the general fund, which St. Vrain DOES control, as long as they don't underfund the Title I schools and make up the difference with Title I money.

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Submitted By: Jo Charlton

posted on 7/25/2008 @ 11:47:43 PM

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... I am still investigating the complicated mess of how public schools are funded at the federal and state level. One thing I know--the lunch budget is completely separate. You mention above title one "set asides" --do you mean federal $$? The way I am reading it--the state (and district) are required to take the $$ from the state's funds (i.e. they have no choice because of this federal mandate) if you read: http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html holy cow--that makes perfect sense eh? not. I guess my bottom line here is that my take on this is that it is a federal mandate with no $$ to back it up and St Vrain doesn't really have a choice. Please point me to a clearer definition of this if I am wrong....

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Submitted By: Brad Jolly

posted on 6/15/2008 @ 6:28:23 AM

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Thanks, Doug. I cannot take credit for the phrase; it came from school board member John Creighton. A student without adequate habits of learning is like a car up on blocks. Don't tell me you need extra money for high octane gas until you get the car off the blocks.

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Submitted By: Doug Wray

posted on 6/14/2008 @ 9:31:15 PM

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I am gratified to see you working so diligently to improve the schools. "Habits of learning" is a perfect description of the issue.

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

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Brad Jolly

Longmont , CO

Brad Jolly has posted 28 blog entries and 11 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Brad Jolly 's average blog rating is 4.11.

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