North
Dakota "Adequacy Study" Recommends 31% Increase In Revenue for K-12 Education
In early September, the North
Dakota Department of Public Instruction released two reports that call for
additional revenue of $206 million for K-12 education across the state:
 a cost
study calculated the funding levels necessary for North Dakota school districts
to be able to meet state and federal
accountability requirements for student achievement; and
a separate report estimated the total cost of applying the results of the first
study to all school districts.
The first
report, the cost study, used the professional judgment
approach and six hypothetical school districts of varying
sizes to calculate 1) base cost figures, 2) adjustments
for students who have disabilities, are "at-risk" due
to poverty, or are English Language Learners (ELL),
and 3) adjustments for school district size. The base
cost figures range from $6,005 per-student in moderate
size K-12 districts to $11,593 per-student in very small
elementary districts.
The second report,
estimating total cost, includes calculations of adequate funding for each school
district in North Dakota and for the state in total. It also compares these calculations
for 2001-02 with actual spending in 2001-02. Finally, it concludes that an additional
$206 million of revenue, 31%, would have been needed in the 2001-02 school year
to fund all school districts at an adequate level to enable them to reach the
State's (and new federal) achievement standards. That year, North Dakota spent
$660 million, or an average of $6,413 per-student, on its 102,888 students. No
analysis was performed to determine appropriate state or local sources for the
increased revenue. Both reports were prepared by Augenblick, Palaich and
Associates, Inc. of Denver, Colorado. Like many cost studies, these reports exclude
consideration of capital costs, food service and transportation. Also,
since the federal mandate for all public schools is to have 100% of students reach
"proficiency" by 2013-14, calculations of spending needed to reach this ambitious
goal, without caveats, are untested estimates, for now. Prepared September
12, 2003 |
