Fund Allocation Paper
School Finance
Iowa is very unique when it comes to school finance. We use the single count date for the purpose of funding the state’s school districts. This is a count of the number of students in attendance on October 1st. This is when the federal government requires a count of the number of students eligible for the free and reduced price lunch program for purposes of Title I funding. An advantage to using the single count date is that it is reasonably easy and it also helps to cut down on administrative costs. There are many disadvantages to using this system. The single count date does not give districts any type of financial incentives for holding onto students after the count date. In most districts, enrollment will rise or fall from fall to spring, so if you have to use the single count date then districts could be more over-funded or under-funded. There are some students who don’t enroll even enroll in school until after October 1st, so this would cause districts to receive no funding for these students.
The top four things the public should know about school finance in Iowa is as follows:
The total amount of money a district has to spend is primarily driven by the number of children a district has. We can’t just raise as much money (or as little) as we want locally.
The tax rate of a district is largely driven by formula and only a small portion is impacted by the school board.
Certain funds have to be spent on certain things. This explains why a district might have the funds to pave a parking lot, even though they don’t have money to pay teachers.
Most of our expenses are staff: approximately 80% of a district’s general fun is ...
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...day of students enrolled in school throughout the school year. ADM differs from ADA because the daily count includes absent students. Advantages to this technique involve the fact there is a great accuracy, financial incentives by keeping students in school all year, and districts funding will not be affected for the absent students. Because ADM is complex, it is subject to local manipulation, and lacks commonsense appeal. An imperfection to this method is that it provides no financial incentive for promoting attendance. Another disadvantage is that ADM involves numerous counting and reporting, it could also be more time-consuming and costly to administrators.
If I had to choose between ADA and ADM, I would chose ADM as it appears you have the advantage of allocating more dollars towards all classifications. It provides a better way to line-item your budget.
Sadly, our country spends 13.5 billion dollars on space exploration but can't find enough funding for our public schools. (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/congress/budget1.html) The United States is the richest nation on our planet. Yet, parent clubs all over the country spend volunteer time raising money for public schools. Why do we not have enough funding for our public schools and who is responsible for our lack of funds?
In order to disburse school district funds are factors to take in consideration as allot money for between administration, head of the departments, teachers or faculty and support staff salaries, coaches, bus drivers and school security to mention some. When the funds are distributed among the district, it is time to allocate funds for students (Rose, 2013). Some of those funds are disburse for school meals for a low income students, other areas where funds extra-curricular or after school activities that in some states are require in order to receive funds (Frank & Education Resource, 2012). Some districts, also chose to allocate funds base on student’s daily school attendance; these are call average daily attendance (ADA) and average daily membership (ADM). These terms are really important as administrator to understand and take in consideration, as well as how to apply them for school budget.
district, who has been a teacher for 5 years. She says, “The cuts that schools have to make only harm the children in the long run. With class size increasing there is less one on one time, therefore students can easily fall through the cracks and are unfortunately left behind.” This budget cut for 2012 will take another $150 million for K-12, another $198 million to universities as well as $70 million to communi...
State and local governments may be required to contribute partially to programs stemming from nonfederal revenue. When local and state governments have to spend more on these programs less of their own revenue is spent on programs of their choose and
School funding for public schools has collectively been cut by $7.6 billion since 2002, forcing schools districts in Georgia to a tipping point. The 2001 recession had a major effect on Georgia’s fiscal condition, which consequently had a major effect on the financing of K-12 education in Georgia. School budgets are used to describe a district’s plan for the upcoming year as pertaining to anticipated revenues and expenditures. Each district’s budget heavily relies on the amount of money they receive from the state’s general fund and since that number has significantly dropped in recent years schools are not able to provide the best education for our students. The budget for public schools in Georgia should be increased because teachers are losing their jobs and schools are being forced to eliminate valuable programs that are instrumental in the education of our youth.
...he surrounding area are required (and thus get more funding from local property taxes), by law and Education Code, to give a portion of their funding to school districts that are “poor” in order to boost the “poor” school districts performance; this idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor is why it is dubbed the “Robin Hood” plan (Smith, Schools are Reassigned to Robin Hood, 2011). This bill was the first in a long series of proposed bills that was ruled as a constitutional solution for the 1989 Texas Supreme Court case Edgewood v. Kirby, but it is also the reason for the not only the current lawsuit filed by approximately 600 school districts (both wealthy and poor), but also the 2003 school funding lawsuit (Texas School Finance History, n.d.). It has been ruled unconstitional several times throughout its history, yet it still remains in practice today.
The American public school system faces an education crisis. According to Benjamin Barber, American children barely surpass the lowest standards set for education, especially in literacy, throughout the county’s history. Barber supports the existence of this crisis in his essay “America Skips School”, but argues against a solution to remedy the numerous problems facing the system. Although he acknowledges no solution, Barber suggests a smarter flow of financial resources will address many of the issues, however, he fails to acknowledge the distribution of this money. Barber’s suggestion for smarter financial resources for schools can be effectively implemented through a structured committee focused solely on the distribution of money.
Even in this time of struggle, with billions of dollars going towards various war efforts overseas, America still has managed to keep taxpayer investments in education higher than that of funds for national defense (U.S Department of Education). In the 2004-05 school year, there was an estimated amount of 536 billion dollars set aside from taxpayer investment for education purposes. Without a doubt, education is a priority for the American government, and if these funds are used in the correct way, there is no reason why each and every kid in the United States shouldn’t be getting a quality education. However, the organization of the financial system is flawed, funds are not handled proportionately at the state level; rather, this system favors the wealthier districts and hands more funds to them while the less wealthier districts are handed a smaller pool of funds. This really affects America’s quality of education, which also reflects upon how America fairs on the world stage when it comes to competition in education with other countries. The disorganization of funds in the United States can be seen in the Hoover City School district, which has bought every student in that district an iPad for use in school. The first problem with this is that this school district does not even have a viable bus system that can transport students to and from school. Secondly, not even 20 miles from this district lies the Birmingham City School district where a little more than half the students are graduating, compared to Hoover City Schools where a bit more than 90 percent of the students are graduating. If anything, the state should be working towards improving educational standards in lower-income communities rather than debating on the log...
Public schools and towns haven’t been receiving their fair share of state revenue. In order to correct for this, you are right, those three options are ways of increasing funding. However, they are not the only way.
As colleges’ funds dry up, colleges must turn to the public to further support higher education. By raising state taxes, colleges can collect funds to help improve the school’s budgets. The state provides funds from the taxes for colleges to receive a certain amount for each student currently enrolled. All community and traditional four year colleges collect these funds in order to maintain the school’s budget. As reporter, Eric Kelderman states, “less than a third of colleges’ budget is based from state taxes”. The school’s budget is how colleges are able to provide academic support programs, an affordable intuition, and hire more counselors. Colleges must now depend on state taxes more than ever for public colleges. Without collecting more funds from state taxes, as author, Scott Carlson explains how Mr. Poshard explains to senators “our public universities are moving quickly toward becoming private universities…affordable only to those who have the economic wherewithal to them” (qtd. in.) Public colleges must be affordable to anyone who wishes to attend. If colleges lack to provide this to students, it can affect dropouts, a student’s ability focus, and cause stress. The problem of lack of funding is that colleges have insufficient funds. Therefore, the best possible solution for the problem of lack of funding would be increasing and collecting more funds from state taxes.
Proper school funding is one of the keys to having a successful school. Americans believe that funding is the biggest problem in public schools. School improvements revolve around funding. There needs to be funding not only in the successful schools but also the schools that aren’t doing as well. In documentary, Waiting for Superman, it talks about how smaller class sizes will help students. Funding is what will help the smaller class sizes. State funding mechanisms are subject to intense political and economic scrutiny (Leonard). Studies have shown that funding is inversely related to accreditation levels (Leonard). School funding needs to be increased, but there must be accountability as well.
I learned that school budgets not only inform us of priorities, but they can also serve as a communication tool for the whole district. I feel as if our school could use the budget as an opportunity to discuss progress as well as our strategic plan, but they don’t. Teachers and parents rarely hear about the budget’s educational and operational objectives and accomplishments. This is definitely something my school could improve on, since the school budget should reflect the community and their values. I also think there is a skewed public, and even faculty, perception regarding the school budget. Some of these views include that the school budget is wasteful, administrators are overpaid, administrators are not forward-thinking, and money is spent in the wrong areas. These adverse perceptions of the school budget are often heard during difficult economic times, such as when our school district recently went on fiscal distress. However, I have learned that without meaningful involvement of the community, educators, and staff, these perceptions will never
Under the pressure of budget cuts, many educational institutions have no choice but to reduce professional teaching staff and increasing class size. However, this short-sighted solution can pose a threat to a school’s future. The consequence could be lower graduation rates and declines in enrollment. Traditionally, the state funding is set by a “quota formula” in which the Central Office dictate the number and types of positions that schools are to receive. According to the report on CPS Budget in the Fiscal Year 2014 (FY2014), the former quota formula “created disproportionate impacts, where one extra student coming or going could mean the difference in a full teacher position gained or lost”. In improving the budgeting system, in the FY2014,
Statewide projects are funded with lottery money. For instance, schools can be updated with all the latest and greatest technology because the state has the funds to distribute to them. The state of Oregon allocates 57% of its profits to funding education. The state of Florida has put more than 3.9 billion dollars since 2010 in renovation and new construction of schools. Essentially, citizens are improving their state’s education system, which affect their child and thousands of others. The...
Governor Walker and his supporters claim that, rather than hurting Wisconsin’s school system, the budget cuts actually help by making schools be more careful and efficient with their use of money, and they say that spending more money on education will not actually improve it. For example, when budget cuts in Colorado forced some schools to rethink their spending, they switched to several more efficient teaching practices, the most original of which being a four day school week (Schouten 1). The four day school week allowed some districts to save up to $65,000 a year in transportation costs, such as the Maccray School District in Minnesota (Coleman, Walker & Lawrence 5). These newer teaching practices not only saved money on buses and other