CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – This being an election year, there’s a call to make Wisconsin’s school funding formula “more fair”. Democrat liberals say school funding should be based “on need”.
That’s code for giving even more money to failing school districts. Districts that do the worst job educating kids would get more money.
In Wisconsin right now, state aid is $742 per student. If the student lives in one district, but open-enrolls in a neighboring district, the money follows the student. So if a school district is poor, they could lose millions as students choose to go somewhere else. Wausau, which kept its school closed too long during COVID, lost millions to as students went to D.C. Everest, Merrill, Mosinee and private schools that re-opened much sooner. Many of those students, and the dollars that follow them, never came back.
But the state school funding formula is already altered by “need.” Districts with lower property values have their school aid adjusted upward. Districts that cover large geographic areas get extra transportation aid. Smaller districts with higher overhead costs get more. And economically depressed districts get more.
Consider Milwaukee. It gets $80.3-million in state funding. That’s about $1,200 per student; nearly double the state average. What do we, as taxpayers, get for double the aid? Nothing. We get a school district that has more administrators than teachers. It has the largest test-score gap between white students and students of color. It has a 28% dropout rate.
Here is the little secret that no one tells you. Money put into schools has nothing to do with student achievement. If so, Milwaukee would be the best school district in the state, not the worst.
Politicians who want to change the school funding formula want to send more money down the black hole of failure, while taking it away from districts that are doing a much better job.
Chris Conley
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