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Akron
Beacon Journal
Question
of adequacy
February 14, 2013
For
more than 20 years two concepts
have dominated the school-funding debate in Ohio: adequacy and equity.
Equity
points to a distribution issue, the task of evening wide disparities
among
districts in the money directed to education. Adequacy concerns whether
the
funding is sufficient to ensure any student, anywhere in Ohio, has
access to a
competitive standard of education.
Perhaps
the ultimate test for
policymakers is to achieve a balance of equity and adequacy that meets
the
constitutional mandate for a thorough and efficient system of public
schools.
So far, that system of funding has proved elusive.
John
Kasich, the fourth governor to
face the test, was confident he had the solution. But explanations by
his
policy team during a House Finance Committee hearing this week
confirmed that
adequacy is not a feature of the Kasich funding plan. Barbara
Mattei-Smith, the
assistant policy director for the Governor’s Office of 21st Century
Education,
told the panel: “We are not attempting to define, or even propose that
we can
know, as a state, the correct spending amount that ensures every
student in
every district will receive just the right amount of teaching and
learning for
success upon leaving our elementary and secondary schools.”
That
is a disappointing admission
of failure, a failure to keep in view all that is required to build a
world-class system of public schools, which the governor frequently and
properly champions.
The
adequacy issue is precisely the
problem that earlier governors and legislatures aimed to address by
identifying
and costing out the essential components of the sort of teaching and
learning
that makes for success upon leaving school. To their shame, they did
not fully
fund the components, but they understood the factors essential in a
funding
plan that genuinely seeks achievement everywhere. If the Kasich team
will not
propose or even attempt to define what would provide the right amount
of
teaching, then the suggestion is, “adequate” is any amount that may be
available...
Read
the rest of the article at the
Akron Beacon Journal
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