Beginning next month, 15 people could decide the future of .
Lawmakers established the school-funding task force with a unanimous vote on the last day of the legislative session in June. It was pitched as , who once again this year received one-time stipends instead of permanent raises.
But the committee, which is scheduled to begin meeting Aug. 13, has a far more sweeping mission than simply to find more money for teachers.
Its job is to conduct a “top-to-bottom review” of the more than 30-year-old formula that determines how much state funding every public school in Louisiana receives, according to . Called the Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP, the formula doles out about $4 billion annually, which schools use to pay teachers, purchase textbooks, operate buses, provide special education services, and much more.
After studying the MFP, the committee must recommend a “revised or replacement formula” by Jan. 1, according to the resolution. If their proposals are adopted, these 15 people will have overhauled the decades-old funding system in a matter of months.
By next year, “hopefully we'll have a brand-new MFP — a new dawn — in Louisiana,” Gov. Jeff Landry said in June when he and legislative leaders formed the task force.
But as the group gets set to convene, public education advocates are raising concerns.
While most agree that the funding formula needs to be updated, they argue that the five-month timeline is too condensed. They also question why the committee includes 10 lawmakers and someone from the governor’s office, but just four people representing education groups.
Other states have engaged in lengthy school-funding reviews before overhauling their systems. involved 18 subcommittees with more than 200 members and public hearings across the state, while Texas’s school-finance commission produced with dozens of recommendations.
Critics have suggested that Louisiana’s task force is designed to give Landry and the Legislature more sway over school funding, even though the state board of education legally controls the MFP. They fear the committee will lock in the funding cut that Landry ordered this year to pay for the teacher stipends, forcing schools to make do with less money.
“I’m praying for the best,” said St. Tammany Parish School Board member Isabelle Moore. But “I do worry.”
School funding debate
The task force was ostensibly created to secure funding for permanent teacher raises. But it sprang from a much larger debate: – or more fiscal discipline?
The debate is centered on the MFP, the system Louisiana adopted in 1992 to distribute state education dollars, which comprise about 40% of school funding (local and federal money make up the rest). The formula doles out funding to school systems based on how many students they enroll, giving extra money to districts with less local tax revenue and to schools serving students with additional needs, including those with disabilities or from low-income families.
Public school advocates generally approve of the formula’s basic design, which distributes dollars based on local needs and resources. The main problem, they argue, is that the baseline funding amount — $4,015 per student — has increased by less than $600 over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the cost of goods and services has soared, and schools face mounting demands to provide tutoring, mental health services, career education, enhanced security and more.
“One word they don’t want to hear is ‘adequacy,’” said Michael Faulk, the former head of the statewide superintendents association, referring to lawmakers. “What does it actually take to provide every student an education that meets all the requirements the state puts on schools?”
But not all state lawmakers, who allocate school funding, are convinced that schools need more money.
Senate President Cameron Henry, who introduced the resolution creating the task force, said advocates who ask for more education funding can’t explain the formula or how schools spend the dollars they receive.
“You're never going to get more money when no one understands where the money that you're currently getting goes,” he said in an interview last month.
The funding debate came to a head this spring over the question of teacher pay.
After voters rejected Landry’s plan to use education trust funds to finance raises, he pulled $168 million out of school district budgets to cover stipends for teachers and support staff. He argued that school districts can stretch the dollars they get by reducing “waste and bureaucracy.”
“We do not have a revenue problem in this state,” Landry said. “We have a priorities problem.”
Around the same time, Landry and Henry said the MFP task force would figure out how to insert teacher raises into the formula so that, after this year, temporary stipends would not be necessary.
“There is no way we can't find a permanent pay raise in those dollars,” Henry said.
‘Tall order’ for task force
The task force faces a formidable to-do list when it convenes next month.
The committee must conduct a “comprehensive” review of the MFP, then propose a new or revised formula that is transparent, sustainable and includes “permanent and predictable” funding for educator raises, the establishing resolution says.
The resolution does not address what educators and advocates say is the underlying problem — that the state has not put enough money into K-12 education to keep up with rising needs and costs.
“I think the formula’s pretty fair,” said David Claxton, executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, who is on the task force. “The issue is more about funding it.”
Another task force member, Sen. Glen Womack, R-Harrisonburg, said he is open to considering whether schools need more money — after the group digs into the funding formula.
“I think our first step is finding out how we got here,” said Womack, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. “Where is the money going now?”
When other states revamped their school-funding formulas in recent years, they simultaneously boosted funding levels. Tennessee that increased annual education funding by $1 billion. Texas , increasing per-student funding by about 20% and boosting spending by more than $6 billion. The changes came after a commission met for about a year, hearing testimony from more than 150 educators, advocates and policy experts.
Barry Erwin is chief policy officer of the research and advocacy group Leaders for a Better Louisiana. He said he questions how lawmakers who are not school-finance experts will be able to rewrite the MFP in less than five months.
“Honestly, it doesn't seem feasible to me,” he said. “Once they start really digging into it, they’re going to see how complex it is.”
Even if the group does propose a new formula, the Legislature can’t simply adopt it. Under the Louisiana constitution, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education sets the funding formula, which the Legislature can only approve or reject.
Kevin Berken, who chairs the board’s education finance committee, said the board is open to recommendations, adding that there already have been two independent studies of the MFP this year. He said the board will consider the task force’s recommendations, but noted that the group has been given a short timeline to propose a school-funding overhaul.
“It’s a pretty tall order,” he said. “I wish them a lot of luck.”
Below are the members of the Minimum Foundation Program Task Force, as . Members may appoint designees to represent them.
Position | Name |
|---|
Senate President | Sen. Cameron Henry (R) |
Speaker of the House of Representatives | Rep. Phillip DeVillier (R) |
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance | Sen. Glen Womack (R) |
Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations | Rep. Jack McFarland (R) |
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education | Sen. Rick Edmonds (R) |
Chairman of the House Committee on Education | Rep. Laurie Schlegel (R) |
Chairman of the Senate Republican Legislative Delegation | Sen. Jeremy Stine (R) |
Chairman of the Senate Democratic Legislative Delegation | Sen. Gerald Boudreaux (D) |
Chairman of the House Republican Legislative Delegation | Rep. Michael Echols (R) |
Chairman of the House Democratic Legislative Delegation | Rep. Kyle Green Jr. (D) |
Governor | Gov. Jeff Landry (R) |
President of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers | Larry Carter |
President of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education | Simone Champagne |
Executive director of the Louisiana School Boards Association | Janet Pope |
Executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents and Administrators | David Claxton |