"Washington Adequacy Funding Study”

January 2007

The study defines adequacy as meeting goals found in both state and federal law. These include:

• The goals listed in the state Basic Education Act of 1977, which says that all students are expected to have the opportunity to gain knowledge, application, and analytical and creative thinking skills in each of the major academic subjects;
• Increased student achievement on the state WASL exams in core subjects;
• Federal education goals under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Authors note that state law says that “all students are expected to achieve” the state goals (emphasis is the authors’). In addition, the federal education goals under the No Child Left Behind Act require 100 percent proficiency on state exams by 2014. Though the authors never explicitly state the “100 percent proficiency” benchmark, it is possible that this is what they are attempting to cost out.

Editorial comment: Achieving 100 percent proficiency is an unprecedented and, experts argue, unattainable goal. Robert Linn, co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, calls the 100% proficiency standard “unrealistically high.”

Average cost per student: $11,678

Unlike many education cost studies, the average per pupil figure is not separated into a “base cost” per pupil and “weightings” for students with special needs.

The $11,678 total is broken down as follows:

• Professional Judgment Method: $10,825
• Wage Analysis Adjustment: $253
• Cost Function adjustment for high-poverty schools: $390
• Cost Function adjustment for small schools: $210

$3.45 billion, a 45 percent increase over 2004-2005 expenditures

General Findings:
Washington schools are under-funded because many more demands have been placed upon them in recent years. These demands include:

• Rapidly rising enrollment: Washington’s enrollment has risen 5 percent since 1996
• Teacher shortages: Rising enrollment has led to Washington having the 5th highest student/teacher ratio in the country
• More students with special needs: The percentages of students requiring special education and eligible for free or reduced-price lunches have increased in recent years, and the percentage of students who are English Language Learners has gone from 4.7% to 7.1% in the past eight years
• State and federal accountability measures, including the No Child Left Behind Act

Professional Judgment:
Panelists recommended 22 evidence-based interventions. The full list is on p. 118 of the study. The major recommendations included:

• Smaller class sizes
• Additional administrative staff and higher administrative salaries
• Additional time, including summer school and tutoring programs
• Additional support staff
• More classroom and library resources, particularly in the area of technology
• Increased and improved professional development for teachers
• School security at the middle and high school levels

Wage Analysis:
Comparative wage analysis recommended different increases based on the salaries and cost of living in various locations. The Bellingham school district, for example, required no wage increase on the comparative analysis. The Seattle school district, on the other hand, required a 28% increase in teacher salaries.

Hedonic wage analysis recommended a $3,000 increase in teacher salaries in schools in which 60-80% of students are low-income and a $5,000 increase in teacher salaries in districts where 80-100% of students are low-income in order to allow districts comparable ability recruit and retain qualified teachers.

Cost Function:
Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were given a weight of 40% (i.e. each low-income student counted as 1.4 students in determining the total costs for a school based on enrollment)

Schools with fewer than 100 students per grade required a scaled adjustment for diseconomies of scale (see fig. 17 on p. 135 of the study)

Adjust formulas used to distribute funds to districts, in order to direct funds in proportion to need

Help schools develop better means of identifying and implementing evidence-based practices using targeted research programs

The state should develop programs to encourage districts to redistribute their budgets to improve operational efficiency

A sophisticated statewide data reporting system would aid in determining the cost and effectiveness of various programs

The study used a hybrid approach that utilized elements of the Successful Schools, Evidence-based, Professional Judgment, and Cost Function Approaches.

Phase I: “Improving Schools Method”: Professional Judgment/”Successful” Schools

• Authors created “prototype schools” at the elementary, middle, and high school levels based on the average expenditure patterns in Washington
• Authors identified schools that performed better than expected based on the proportion of low-income students. Authors noted these schools did not have to meet adequacy goals; they are not successful schools, only efficient ones. They found 42 elementary, 29 middle, and 26 high schools that met their criteria.
• Principals of these “improving schools” were invited to modify the prototype schools’ expenditures, without increasing expenditures, thus creating “model” schools.

Phase II:
Phase IIA: Educational Interventions: Evidence-based/Professional Judgment

• Authors produced a list of effective educational interventions from research literature. A full list can be found on pp. 66-67 of the study.
• Educational administrators (including superintendents, principals, school finance directors, and other educational administrators), chosen based on (1) being principals of schools from Phase I and (2) recommendations from the WA Assoc. of School Administrators, were presented with the model schools from Phase I as well as the list of interventions and were asked to determine which interventions were necessary to bring schools up to the level of meeting adequacy goals
• The budget simulations were done in real-time, so that participants could see the fiscal effects of recommendations, in order to encourage cost-efficiency

Phase IIB: Professional Judgment Panels

• Results from Phase IIA were presented to review panels. Panelists comprised mostly professionals who had participated in Phase IIA. Panelists were encouraged to offer feedback, make changes, and consider the cost of the recommendations in relation to the state’s ability to fund programs
• The salary recommendations that came out of Phase II were not used in the final analysis, and were instead replaced by the authors’ own wage analysis, done in Phase III. However, the benefit-to-salary expenditure ratio determined in Phase II was used in the final analysis.

Phase III: Wage Adjustment Analysis, calculated by the authors

• Compensation for teachers was adjusted on the basis of two factors: (1) comparable wage analysis and (2) hedonic wage analysis
• Comparable wage analysis adjusted teacher salaries based on the wages earned by people in other professions who had similar qualifications, excluding individuals in leadership or management positions and individuals in highly specialized fields
• Hedonic wage analysis adjusted teacher salaries in high-needs districts in order to allow districts comparable ability recruit and retain qualified teachers

Phase IV: Cost Function Analysis, done by the authors

• Cost Function analysis using methods from research literature and data from actual school expenditures and student achievement determined that the models did not adequately adjust for the costs of small districts and low-income students
• Authors used the cost function models to adjust costs for very small schools (schools with fewer than 100 students per grade) and schools enrolling high percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches
  
  

This study did not consider capital funding for facilities, etc., transportation, food service, adult education, or community service costs, which are ordinarily excluded from adequacy studies.

This study did not include the cost of preschool.

None.