Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Abject Hypocrisy of State Education Spending
The Governor of Pennsylvania has announced a new way to fund public schools. The new plan will use the so-called “costing out” study results to determine how much school districts receive. We have previously commented on the unscientific nature of the study, pointing out methodological flaws and internal inconsistencies. An upcoming Policy Brief will take an even more detailed look at the study.
Meantime, we learn that under the Governor’s new plan the Pittsburgh School District is slated to get an increase of 4.3 percent, about $3 million more than it was expecting. The problem? According to the costing out study, Pittsburgh is already spending several thousand dollars more pupil than the study finds they should be spending to achieve the goal of 100 percent proficiency by students on the state’s PSSA exams. The state should be reducing its allocation to Pittsburgh.
How preposterous can this government be? It decides to use the results of a flawed study to allocate school funding and then ignores the parts for the study it doesn’t like.
Can we just dispense with the pretense? This is government by caprice and whim.
Meantime, we learn that under the Governor’s new plan the Pittsburgh School District is slated to get an increase of 4.3 percent, about $3 million more than it was expecting. The problem? According to the costing out study, Pittsburgh is already spending several thousand dollars more pupil than the study finds they should be spending to achieve the goal of 100 percent proficiency by students on the state’s PSSA exams. The state should be reducing its allocation to Pittsburgh.
How preposterous can this government be? It decides to use the results of a flawed study to allocate school funding and then ignores the parts for the study it doesn’t like.
Can we just dispense with the pretense? This is government by caprice and whim.
