Schools need to spend more to adequately fund education

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Schools in Missouri need hundreds of millions dollars more to meet state and federal achievement guidelines, according to a report released Thursday.

The report, prepared by an education consultant, found schools would have needed to spend an additional $913 million in the 2001-02 academic year to adequately fund education.

That's an increase of 15.7 percent.

The report also suggested increasing education salaries by 5.65 percent to bring them in line with the salaries paid in states that border Missouri.

The information released Thursday is the second phase of a study being conducted by Denver-based education consultant John Augenblick. The Missouri Education Coalition for Adequacy, a business and education group, is distributing the report.

Augenblick said the message of the report is that school districts aren't receiving enough money to do what is expected of them.

"Really the only way to hold them accountable to meet those expectations is to make sure that they have enough money," he said.

Funding remains tight in the state and it is unclear whether the Legislature will follow the report's recommendations. The Legislature's Joint Interim Committee on Education discussed the study at a meeting Thursday night at Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph.

At the meeting, Augenblick told state Rep. Bob Johnson, R-Lee's Summit, the study only considered school spending, and not state's school revenue issues.

"That's unfortunate," Johnson said. "That's too bad."

To determine what constituted adequate education funding, Augenblick determined how much the state's top performing districts spent on each student.

The consultant also convened focus groups last fall made up of teachers, principals and other educators. The groups considered how much money the schools would need to meet state accreditation standards and comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal law that requires all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

In addition to a large initial increase in education funding, Augenblick's report found schools will need more money each year as the new federal law gradually requires larger percentages of students to reach the proficient level. Meeting that requirement would take additional resources.

The report also found the smallest districts would require the largest increases in per-pupil spending to provide an adequate education, an increase of about 44.1 percent. The largest districts would require the smallest increases in per pupil spending to meet adequacy, 3.2 percent.

The Missouri Education Coalition for Adequacy was formed last summer to study the costs of an "adequate" education. Its members include Kansas City's Chamber of Commerce, the Hall Family and Ewing Marion Kauffman foundations, the Missouri School Boards' Association, the state's three professional teachers' organizations and the state parent-teacher association.

The first part of the study, which was released in February, determined the base per-pupil spending amount needed. But it didn't determine the additional costs of educating such special groups as disabled students and those learning the English language. A third phase of the study will develop a strategy for implementing the plan.

David Oliver of the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, one of the supporters of the study, said it could help the state develop a long-term plan to prevent the annual uncertainty about education funding.

"MECA is very interested in insuring that every Missouri child has access to a high quality public education system," Oliver said. "That's a constitutional mandate. The state struggles on how to fulfill the constitutional obligation. Either the Legislature can fulfill it or if the Legislature does not fulfill it then there is the process of going to the court and having the court fix it."