Spending More, or Spending More Wisely?

When you purchase a good or service—be it a cheeseburger, a pair of shoes, or a car wash—how do you evaluate its quality? Do you consider the outputs—whether the service lived up to its billing and satisfied your demand—or do you focus solely on inputs—how much money was spent to create the good?

In the realm of public education, inputs are king while outputs are largely ignored. Education advocates typically focus solely on dollars spent instead of academic progress. Accordingly, it’s no surprise that education spending continues to steadily increase while achievement stagnates.

Can you think of any other industry or enterprise that is judged on inputs, instead of results?

This singular emphasis on inputs is exemplified in a proposal from the Campaign for Fair Education Funding, which seeks an additional $3.6 billion in state education spending over the next eight years. Given the Commonwealth’s financial outlook, this proposal should be a non-starter.

A massive spending increase is not a means to improve educational quality; it is a means to boost educational inputs. Higher-quality schools require a different approach—one that expands choice, protects and rewards the best teachers, and empowers local school leaders.

The Campaign for Fair Education Funding—comprising a few dozen union, business, and issue advocacy groups—seeks to influence Pennsylvania’s Basic Education Funding Commission, a body of lawmakers and state officials that will offer recommendations to the General Assembly in the next few months.

The purpose of the Funding Commission is to develop a more rational, equitable method to distribute current funding levels. It is not tasked with recommending higher funding levels—let alone a 63 percent increase in the Basic Education subsidy.

Commission member Rep. Donna Oberlander said as much last August:

This Commission’s charge is not to study so called adequate levels of basic education funding. The responsibility of determining a funding level belongs to the General Assembly and is based each year on overall state revenues. This Commission cannot tie the General Assembly to funding targets.

The Campaign for Fair Education Funding did embrace elements of weighted student funding (WSF), which, in a vaccuum, is a good thing. The Commonwealth Foundation has long advocated for WSF as a solution to Pennsylvania’s outdated education funding system—but WSF should be implemented in a revenue-neutral fashion. Instead of a $3.6 billion tax increase, pure WSF distributes current funding levels more equitably and transparently.

Above all else, WSF ensures that state dollars truly follow each student. Currently, if a Pennsylvania student moves from one district to another, state funding does not follow the child to her new school. This must change, if Pennsylvania is to begin to funding students instead of systems.