Kathleen Mihok
MED 7705
Article 5
Due 12/07/10
“A Complexity Response to Funding Public Education.”
By Dr. Alexander Rawoody
The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, Volume 13, article 10
“A Complexity Response to Funding Public Education” highlights the problems with the government’s current linear funding system for school funding. Rawoody quotes the Wall Street Journal in saying, “A political system that expects failure doesn’t try very hard to produce anything else.” It is his contention that our political system expects failure. I disagree that our system expect failure but I do agree that our current funding system sets already disadvantaged schools up for failure.
Our current funding system is set up the following way: If a school is low performing we reduce or withhold federal funding. As a result the school must rely on primarily local funding. Due to the decrease in funding, the low performing school generally performs even lower because there are less resources available to help implement any programs that would help to improve achievement levels. As a result of the continued low performance, funding is decreased even more and the school ends up losing even more funding and eventually, may be closed. So it is the system that sets low achieving schools up for failure.
Rawoody continues on to suggest that instead of the current linear system of funding, a more complex, adaptive program needs to be developed. Local funding is generally based on property taxes and other revenue. Consequently, low-income areas generally receive less funding and as a result are lower performing. So yes, the funding system does need an overhaul but in order to do so, a complex adaptive system as Rawoody suggests will need to be implemented. How will this be done? I think therein lies the problem. The budgets of most governmental systems do not leave much room for “adaptations”. I think it is just very difficult to go from such a 1 +1 = 2 formula to a formula that would need to take in the various incomes and resources available.
I think it is possible to change the current funding system for the better. I would strongly suggest a formula that takes into account the total amount of money available in the country for “federal funding” of schools. The next step, would be to request statistics from each state on the total funding each state provides. Then the government could add that together and calculate the total funding each school should receive. The government could then change its funding program to more of a subsidy type program where it could determine the portion paid by the federal government to each local area based on the amount of need to fill the gap between the amount of local funds available and the amount of money the government thinks is necessary to adequately fund education. I think this is the only fair response since everyone is entitled to a free and appropriate education. There shouldn’t be such huge discrepancies is the amount of funding available. This could be considered another form of discrimination. In a country where, as a whole, we claim education solves all problems (teen pregnancy, poverty, abuse, etc.) we must find a better way to fund our public schools.