Video: Funding Varies from School to School

Mitchell Talk‘s host Scott Mitchell explored how schools are funded in Oklahoma and found that per student funding isn’t evenly spread among schools and school districts. He breaks down the issue in the video below.

 

 

Oklahoma is continuing to see growing disparities in per pupil funding for districts across the state. While the need for more education funding has reached a bipartisan consensus, how the funds are dispersed is often a point of contention.

The state’s funding system is supposed to help equalize revenue from one district to another, however reports from the Oklahoma Department of Education show schools receive anywhere from $3,724 to $30,152 per student. The statewide average is $8,851 per pupil compared to the regional average of $10,744. States included in the regional average are Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, and New Mexico.

Total school funding relies less on the size of a school’s student body and more on property tax. This means affluent areas with more businesses and higher property values provide a high level of per pupil funding, and impoverished areas are unable to provide the same level of support for their students.

For example, Burlington Public School had an enrollment of 170 students in 2015 and received a total of $30,152 per student. Oak Grove, a school alike in size with 173 students in 2015, received only $6,952 per pupil.

“I’m not going to say it’s all down to how much money you spend on kids per student as to how well you do, but it certainly has something to do with it,” Glen Elliott, Burlington Public School superintendent, said.

The amount of money spent on any child’s education can be radically different based solely on where a student resides, despite all districts being required to meet all the same mandates and produce roughly the same outcomes for their students.

Millard Jones, an administrator at Deborah Brown Community School, located in Tulsa, said his school has been a victim of funding inequality.

“I think we should be receiving, at the very least, the same amount of money if we’re doing the same job,” Jones said.

Deborah Brown Community School receives $5,716 in per pupil funding, well below the state average.

In Oklahoma, the top 30 percent of school districts receive an average of $13,735 per pupil, almost double the amount of the bottom 30 percent, which receives an average of $7,776 per student.

Angela Clark Little is a parent and a public school advocate that contends state funding deserves higher scrutiny.

“I was actually pretty shocked to learn that there’s that big of a difference,” Litte said.

She feels the state continues to place a Band-Aid on the funding formula instead of revising it for school funding equity.

“I really feel like this is an issue, a subject within our state that we can’t afford to not work together on,” Little said.

Unless the equity problem is addressed, it would require education funding to nearly triple to bring all of Oklahoma’s public schools to the regional average, but if funding were distributed equitably, this would only require a 20 percent increase in funding to achieve the regional average for all schools in the state.


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  1. Vernon Woods, 23 March, 2017

    This report demonstrates the total amounts of funds provided to each district. An explanation of how the amounts are calculated and what factors are the cause of the disparities by districts would help us understand what the problems are.

  2. Tom Allens, 23 March, 2017

    Yes, please include a full list of district funding in the state as well as how the amounts are calculated and what factors are the cause of the disparities.

  3. castor, 24 March, 2017

    Deborah Brown charter school [$5,700] – A+
    Burlington [$30,000] Elementary – B; Burlington HS – B+
    Oak Grove [$6,900] B+

    So the school with the lowest funding gets not just an A, but an A+.
    The highest funded school has B and B+ schools.

    Hmmmm. So much for more money producing better results.

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