State and Local Funding for Education

I watched an interview this morning of Governor LePage, Maine. He was lamenting the fact that "only 59% of state educational funding gets to the student, 6 points less than the national average of 65%." Another group says it is about 60% on average, although each jurisdiction has a little bit different definition of actual per student funding. He also pointed out something remarkable: "while per-pupil spending has risen by about 27 percent over the past decade, the number of students in Maine schools has dropped by about 11 percent to less than 180,000." Sound familiar? It should to Oklahomans and especially Oklahomans in Seminole. Actually Governor LePage is doing quite well. In Oklahoma, only 56% of the money makes it to the classroom. Texas, on our southern border has theirs at 61%. The most egregious and glaring fact in Oklahoma is not that however. When I was in SPS, 66% of funding for SPS was local, less than one-third was state and federal funding was statistically insignificant. That has flip-flopped; local funding for SPS is about 30%. Those who lament the fact that we have lost local control forget that we gave up local control for education when we gave up funding "local" education, locally. BTW—the percentage decrease in the number of students at SHS was about the same as the State of Maine, 10%, give or take, over the same period. Problem defined; work on it.