Fwd: [ARN-state] More on "100% Solution" - Weighted Student Funding

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>
> Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006  12:15:54 PM US/Pacific
> To: ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>, ARN-L List 
> <arn-l@interversity.org>, arn2-strategy > <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [ARN-state] More on "100% Solution" - Weighted Student Funding
> Reply-To: ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
>
> The authors of the so-called "100% Solution" ask, "How should
> different student characteristics be weighted?" They ask this in
> response to their proposal that "hard-to-educate" (sic) children
> receive more funds. But how do you determine how much each child
> gets? The authors admit, "WSF (weighted student funding) cannot work
> if there is not an accurate picture of the student population of
> every school. With more money flowing to students with greater needs,
> there will be great temptation for schools to exaggerate their
> students’ disadvantages. To ensure a fair process, the school should
> not have responsibility for classifying students."
>
> As one way to crack this inherently corrupted nut, the authors sing
> the praises of the marketplace:
>
> ---snip--
>
> One approach is to set weights over time based on the “marketplace”
> for students that are weighted. In a comprehensive WSF system such as
> we propose, weights can (and should) be established such that hard-to-
> educate children become desirable for schools to enroll. Knowing that
> student performance standards must be reached, principals should find
> the weight for an at-risk child sufficient to make that child an
> asset to the school. Principals should seek out the children who
> bring with them weights that are at least sufficient to enable the
> school to meet achievement standards. Just as the free market sets
> prices for goods and services, the market for hard-to-educate
> children can determine their weighting. Principals and schools should
> seek to enroll hard-to-educate children because they know that with
> the money accompanying the child they can show improvement trends and
> reach performance levels. If this doesn’t happen, the district or
> state should adjust weights until it does.
>
> --snip--
>
> So let me get this straight: under this proposal, principals will go
> out of their ways to find the most challenging "hard-to-educate
> children" because these children will bring more dollars with them.
>
> But wait a minute: these extra dollars are supposed to be used to
> educate these so-called "hard-to-educate children." If that's the
> case, then it's a wash. In other words, there would be no incentive
> whatsoever to enroll these children. It would take more money to
> educate them. The principals would get more money to educate them.
> The principals would spend the extra money on educating them.
>
> Or not.
>
> It would most definitely be an incentive for principals to enroll
> these children if they got the extra money to educate them and then
> spend the extra funds on whatever they chose: a new football field, a
> new air-conditioned teachers' lounge, a new set of textbooks from
> McGraw-Hill.
>
> Ironically, in pointing out the possibility of corruption within the
> system, the authors have provided a new channel for corruption in a
> plan ostensibly designed to prevent it.
>
> A disproportionate percentage of these "hard-to-educate children" are
> black. A call to the marketplace to cure what ails them calls to mind
> a different kind of marketplace at a different time. But this
> marketplace was also designed to cure what ailed them. In both eras,
> their fates lay in the hands of the highest bidders.
>
> ---
> Peter Campbell
>
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