30% increase in spending and everybody will pass WASL / state standards

["Arthur Hu" <arthurhu@comcast.net>]

Now NYC in addition to WA has scientifically proven that all that is needed
for every student to pass graduation standards is to increase spending by
30%


31% MORE MONEY WILL MAKE EVERY CHILD PASS WASL TEST
z75\clip\2004\02\adspend.txt
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/115840_schoolfunding04.shtml
Friday, April 4, 2003
Rainier Institute: Report says billions more needed to make schools adequate
By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

REPORT AT
http://www.rainierinstitute.com/issues/education/What%20Will%20it%20Take.pdf
zip75\clipim\2004\02\05\whattake.pdf
http://www.rainierinstitute.com/press.html
"This project was undertaken in order to determine the resources required to
guarantee
all Washington students a quality education... that (1) enables students to
meet
the standards set in HB1209 [pass WASL test] (2) enable schools .. to meet
federal
standards .. consistent with what Washingtonians want from their schools...
Adequacy is defined as providing an amount of funds sufficient for schools
to
enable all students -- or at least all but the most profoundly challenged --
to meet
federal, state, and district proficiency standards..."
"
And the Rainier Institute report said state and local governments need
to spend more to finance an adequate education system: As much as
$1.76 billion more per year statewide, for a total of (5.59 = 31%
increase) $7.35 billion.
Conley, a researcher at the University of Oregon who developed the
Oregon Quality Education Model, joined the effort three months later.


BURIEN -- Even as the Legislature struggles to close the state's
budget gap while still paying for education and other services, a
non-partisan research group yesterday touted a new way to figure out
how much to spend on public schools.

And the Rainier Institute report said state and local governments need
to spend more to finance an adequate education system: As much as
$1.76 billion more per year statewide, for a total of (5.59 = 31%
increase) $7.35 billion.

As for how to raise the money, the institute punted to the
Legislature. Indeed, lead consultant David Conley said, that wasn't
the issue tackled by the "What Will It Take?" study.

"It's enough to say, 'This is the target,' " Conley said at a news
conference at Highline High School. "It's not realistic to talk about
how to raise money for education without agreement on how much to
raise."

But former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Judith Billings,
a member of the institute, said she hopes the Legislature approves the
$1 million to $2 million proposed by Gov. Gary Locke and some
legislators to underwrite a study of the state's school-funding
mechanisms.

If adopted, the report's "Washington Quality Education Model" would
supplant the creaky basic-education funding formula developed 20 and
more years ago to establish the mandatory minimum of state school aid,
Conley said. The old approach is outmoded because of higher
enrollment, greater diversity and complexity in the student population
and stepped-up pressure for performance from the state and federal
governments, the report says.

The institute, whose president is former Gov. Booth Gardner, conducted
the study at the behest of a consortium of education groups. At the
invitation of the Washington Education Association, which is the union
that represents public-school teachers, representatives of the state
superintendent's office, school board members, principals, teachers'
colleges and others convened in December 2001 to initiate the project.
Conley, a researcher at the University of Oregon who developed the
Oregon Quality Education Model, joined the effort three months later.

Several states have adopted so-called adequacy models to guide school
financing in the last 10 years, Conley said. In Oregon, if legislators
do not approve the spending called for by the model, they must explain
to the public the effect of the shortfall on the state's
schoolchildren, he said.

"It doesn't magically create money," Conley said. "But it maintains a
focus on how much is needed."

To determine that amount in Washington, Conley and his fellow
researchers created a prototype elementary school, middle school and
high school necessary to provide an adequate education. For each
prototype, they specified factors such as average class size, support
staffing, computer availability, even photocopying expenses. They
raised teacher pay to the average in the West.

Once they came up with an annual cost for each prototype of a
specified size, they calculated the expense per pupil, then multiplied
that by enrollment statewide to get the statewide total. Federal
education spending and most capital expenses were not included.

"This is not the be all and end all," Billings said. "This is an
attempt to lay the groundwork."

Meanwhile yesterday, state superintendent Terry Bergeson criticized
the two-year spending proposal put forth this week by the state
Senate. Like Locke's budget plan, it eliminates some scheduled
increases for education as well as some existing aid programs.


INCREASE FUNDING BY 36% AND ALL STUDENTS WILL PASS THE TEST
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/education/05school.html
z75\clip\2004\02\nyspend.txt
$4 Billion More Is Needed to Fix City's Schools, Study Finds
By GREG WINTER
Comment xf- yet another study showing that the only reason every student
doesn't meet every standard is because we're not spending enough money.
This study proves it.

The study...18 months in the making, is the first in which anyone has
tried to figure out the cost of making sure that every child in the
city - or anywhere else in the state, for that matter - is able to
obtain a Regents high school diploma.  An extra $4 billion would be a
36 percent increase over the everyday expenses of New York City public
schools..  ... Taken together two increases would raise the total cost
of educating all students, both in the city and throughout the state,
by about 22 percent beyond 2001-2 levels, the study found.

With New York State under a court mandate to provide a "sound basic
education" to New York City schoolchildren, the plaintiffs in the case
put forward a study yesterday showing that an extra $4.1 billion a
year would be needed to achieve that aim.

The study, more than 18 months in the making, is the first in which
anyone has tried to figure out the cost of making sure that every
child in the city - or anywhere else in the state, for that matter -
is able to obtain a Regents high school diploma.

But it is unclear whether the court will back its findings, or even
equate a basic education with a Regents diploma. Rather, the document
will probably serve as the starting point for what is expected to be a
vigorous debate in the State Legislature over how the state can meet
the court order in a year when it faces a $5.1 billion deficit.

The study carries particular weight because its methodology has long
been endorsed by the chairman of Gov. George E. Pataki's Commission on
Education Reform, Frank G. Zarb, who said yesterday that he and the
Legislature should take it seriously. It was even conducted by some of
the governor's own witnesses in the lawsuit, which lasted a decade.

Mr. Pataki said he had not had a chance to review the study, but added
that along with additional resources for the schools, he would want to
ensure there are high standards and accountability.

An extra $4 billion would be a 36 percent increase over the everyday
expenses of New York City public schools in the 2001-2 academic year,
the most recent year for which statistics are available, the study
found. The number does not include whatever buildings would be needed
to house students in the smaller classrooms the court demanded.

Expanding the same guarantee to every student in the state, as
Governor Pataki has insisted on doing, would increase the price tag by
$3 billion more each year, the study has found. Taken together, the
two increases would raise the total cost of educating all students,
both in the city and throughout the state, by about 22 percent beyond
2001-2 levels, the study found.

With those figures in hand, the two poles that are likely to shape the
legislative wrangling over the court order have begun to take clear
form.

At one end, the governor has proposed heeding the court mandate to fix
the city's schools with the profits from video lottery terminals. In
their first year, they would provide a $325 million increase to
education spending, an amount the governor's office calls a "solid
foundation and framework'' for meeting the court order. Once the
machines are fully up and running, the governor said, they are
expected to yield at least $2 billion a year, though the idea has
provoked skepticism from those who consider it too experimental and
risky to satisfy the court.

Several billion dollars away sit the plaintiffs in the case, a group
called the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which calls its study "the most
extensive, the most expensive and, we think, the most rigorous" work
of its kind. It has no suggestions as to how the extra money should be
raised, but contends that the burden should not be borne by local
taxpayers.

"The lion's share needs to come from the state," said Michael A.
Rebell, the campaign's executive director, adding that the extra money
should be phased in over a period of three to four years.

In the late 1990's, the state's education expenditures rose
considerably, by as much as 32 percent in a matter of four years. But
if the state were to shoulder all of the increase, without extra help
from local taxpayers, it would have to raise its spending by nearly 50
percent, an increase that has previously taken almost twice as long to
achieve.

Bolstering the campaign's findings, the New York State Board of
Regents concluded last December that an extra $6 billion a year would
be needed to bring the state's education spending up to a "fair and
equitable level." But the deficit faced by the state this year is
almost as large as the proposed increase, leading some to expect that
any huge increases will be hard for the Legislature to swallow.

"Whether it's six or seven billion, the numbers are large, and it's
hard to fathom how the state can come up with that, but we're zeroing
in on something," said Robert Lowry, an associate director of the New
York State Council of School Superintendents. He added: "By itself the
governor's $2 billion is out of line with what other parties have
arrived at, but the other shoe hasn't dropped yet. We're still waiting
for the Zarb commission."

Next month, the governor's commission, headed by Mr. Zarb, is supposed
to report the cost of delivering what the court called a "sound basic
education" to every schoolchild in New York State.

But the commission's ability to do so was hampered last month when
Alan G. Hevesi, the state comptroller, rejected a $1.2 million
contract with Standard & Poor's to do the analysis because of a
potential conflict of interest. Mr. Zarb said yesterday that the
commission would deliver a number nonetheless.

Coming up with a figure has been made more complicated by the many
ambiguities of the court ruling itself.

Last June, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, found that
the state had shirked its constitutional obligation to provide New
York City schoolchildren with a decent education, and gave it until
the end of this coming July to remedy the problem. While the court
ruled that only a "meaningful high school education" would be
adequate, it neither endorsed the state's requirements for graduation,
known as the Regents standards, nor specified an appropriate
alternative to using them.

Because the campaign's study uses the Regents standards as a baseline,
it is open to criticism from those who say it goes beyond what the
court requires.

But using the state's own graduation standards as a base, the study
found that an average of $11,093 was spent educating each child in the
2001-2 school year. To make sure that every student had a chance of
meeting the Regents standards, the number should have been $12,520
that year, the study found. Next year, it will have to be $14,180.

In New York City, the disparities are more pronounced. In the 2001-2
school year, an average of $10,793 was spent educating each of the
city's 1.1 million schoolchildren. To help them meet the state's
academic standards, that number should have been $13,373, the study
found. By next fall, it will have to reach $15,150.

The study was conducted by Jay G. Chambers and Thomas B. Parrish of
the American Institutes for Research, as well as by James R. Smith and
James W. Guthrie of Management Analysis and Planning.