State's school funding formula in desperate need of overhaul

Oregon’s school funding formula — last reconfigured in 1991, some 35 years ago — fails to provide more than 100,000 poverty-afflicted students with the extra help they desperately need to catch up with their more affluent counterparts.

According to an independent analysis, that takes “a particularly heavy toll on students of color, students who speak languages other than English, students with disabilities and students in rural districts.” That might seem limited, but 29 of our 36 counties rate as rural and more than 650,000 of our residents are of Latino heritage.

The fault lies primarily in Oregon’s reliance, alone among the nation’s 50 states, solely on census estimates to guide its poverty determinations. The impact is compounded by Oregon’s modest poverty weighting level of 25%, dwarfed by the 90% of Maryland, 60% of Minnesota, and typically more generous levels of other states, most of which are achieving better outcomes.

According to The Oregonian, which just began a special five-part series on the issue, rectifying the immediate disparity would require permanently shifting $300 million from richer districts to poorer counterparts or permanently infusing a like sum of new money to that end. And it would still leave the state saddled with a lowly 25% additional assistance rate.

That’s not particularly palatable to the state’s entrenched political establishment. With some exceptions, the state’s majority Democrats acknowledge the problem, and promise to get around to addressing it in some fashion at some point, but display little immediate interest.

The state’s 11-member Quality Education Commission, created in 1999 to guide lawmakers in their biennial school budgeting decisions, has shown no inclination to jump in either. Republicans, who largely represent rural districts, are more amenable to immediate action, but need Democratic help.

There have been some stirrings in Democratic ranks of late, though with decidedly mixed results.

Earlier this year, Democratic Sen. Janeen Sollman of Hillsboro and Rep. Ricki Ruiz of Gresham led a campaign for a funding formula overhaul they consider long overdue. Earlier this month, Sollman joined a united Republican Senate cohort in opposing three new gubernatorial appointees to the QEC in protest of its funding formula inaction.

However, Sollman lost her re-election bid in the May primary to a union-affiliated candidate enjoying $75,000 in teachers’ union support. That sends Democrats a clear message: Crossing this line puts your political career in peril.

PERS pension reform has long been considered the third rail in Democratic Party politics — the one that carries the fatal charge. Do we need to add school funding reform to the list?

It would seem speaking up can also prove career-ending for state employees. The Oregonian reports: “A whistleblower who worked at the Oregon Legislative Policy and Research Office, which provides information to lawmakers, tried to raise alarm among state officials last year and is now suing the state for firing him.”

Oregon’s 49 state counterparts are all relying at least in part, if not wholly, on eligibility for Food Stamps, Medicaid, and other key forms of government aid.

That’s a threshold typically running double the one on which census data is based. It’s considered a much better indicator, and it’s both regularly updated and readily available.

The problem is, any major change in how money is distributed is certain to produce losers as well as winners. What’s more, the potential losers like situations just the way they are, of course, and are well-heeled enough to make their clout felt.

Declining public school enrollment is depressing revenue anyway — triggering layoffs in districts around the state, both rich and poor — and Oregon’s economic outlook isn’t particularly bright. So there’s no shortage of excuses available for refusing to change.

However, what we’re doing clearly isn’t working. Flight to private schools, chronic absenteeism and badly lagging test scores are among persuasive indicators that we’re in need of a serious course correction.