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Too many Kentucky schools shooting blanks

By Jim Waters

By looking at issues from different angles, intellectually honest people often reach a variety of legitimate conclusions. However, there are times when truth emerges – no matter the perspective. Such is the case when it comes to the impact of money on the performance of the commonwealth’s schools.

From every angle, the oft-repeated assertion that funding causes improvement in the classroom – especially among poor and disadvantaged students – simply isn’t true.

A new Bluegrass Institute analysis – “Bang for the Buck: How cost effective are Kentucky’s public schools?” – offers the first-ever evaluation of how efficiently our state’s schools are performing, based on per-pupil spending versus performance on the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) and ACT college-entrance exams.

Based on a Score-Spending Index (SSI), this new report concludes that Kentucky taxpayers often get little – or no – “bang” for their education “bucks.” Consider some of the following surprising, but statistically unassailable, conclusions offered by this report:

• Many schools achieve solid academic results with surprisingly low amounts of funding.

By repeating their “more money, better education” mantra, the state’s education establishment reinforces the popular, yet mythical, assertion: Schools that don’t spend lavishly cannot possibly provide an adequate education for their students.

We need look no further than Carlisle County to rebuff such false notions.

During the 2003-04 school year, Carlisle County Elementary School spent only $3,080 per pupil, significantly less than the $5,935 spent by the average elementary school in Kentucky. Carlisle must not be providing a very good education for its students, right?

Wrong, actually. Not only did the school produce an above-average CATS score, it did so in spite of the fact that nearly 60 percent of its students live in households officially designated as “low income” – also above the state average.

The report also finds that some schools spending a lot more than Carlisle County Elementary – and with a lower percentage of poor students – still produce CATS scores below the state average. For example, Portland Elementary School in Jefferson County spent $10,340 per pupil in 2004 – nearly twice the state average – and yet recorded a CATS score of only 62.4, more than 16 points below the average of Kentucky elementary schools. For too long, the defenders of Kentucky’s flailing public-education system blame students’ poverty as causing dismal academic performances. But as the SSI results show, such arguments are the equivalent of firing blanks.

Portland Elementary School’s low CATS scores cannot be blamed on either poverty or a lack of spending. Portland has a lower percentage of poor students and a much higher rate of per-pupil spending than both Carlisle Elementary and the state average.

• Schools with high test scores don’t always achieve them efficiently.

How can lawmakers assume that Kentucky schools spend frugally with the billions of dollars they receive? They should be especially cautious given the waste and abuse uncovered in other agencies receiving public dollars.

It costs Anchorage Public Elementary School in Jefferson County more than $10,500 to achieve a high CATS score of 106.2 in 2004. During the same year, Goshen at Hillcrest Elementary in nearby Oldham County scored a 103.3 but spent less than $4,000 per pupil – more than 60 percent less than Anchorage – to achieve these outstanding results.

Poverty is not an issue at either school. Less than 2 percent of the student populations in both schools live in low-income households.

Before lawmakers rush to slop more money into the state’s education trough, perhaps they should first ask why such a huge disparity exists in per-pupil spending between two neighboring schools that yield the same level of performance.

Why shouldn’t taxpayers and parents receive the same focus on productivity for the taxes they pay that shareholders in public companies expect when investing their capital? In fact, to do any less – especially now that these efficiency ratings are publicly available – would be irresponsible on the part of our policymakers.

• Poverty is not an acceptable excuse for poor academic performance.

To those politicians and bureaucrats who continue to burble that poverty impedes children from learning, we ask: How is it that six of the 50 elementary schools with the highest SSIs in Kentucky have a higher-than-average rate of low-income students?

Poverty certainly contributes to the challenges that many Kentucky children must conquer in order to excel. But our education system must not continue to hide behind the same old excuses. In fact, the greater the problems with poverty, the better and more efficiently our schools must perform if children caught in the snares of such disadvantages are to rise above the fray.

Solving the serious education problems facing our commonwealth requires that Kentucky’s education officials view the situation as it really is, not as they want it to be.

– Jim Waters is director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank.

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