Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
Springtime brings sunshine, flowers, and complaints about the allocation models used to disburse money to school boards. The common and inevitable complaint is that there is never enough money to do everything that a school board wants to do for its students. But once provincial and territorial governments have allocated the funds, there will be no additional funds forthcoming (at least until the next budget cycle).
Knowing that, some will complain that the formulas used to calculate the amounts apportioned to various functions need adjusting. But, when the total allocation is static, a change to a formula to the benefit of some boards will in this zero-sum case disadvantage other boards. Inevitably someone will call for a review of the current funding model.
The latitude for revision of the models used to allocate funds to school boards is limited to four basic methods. Per-pupil funding is perhaps the most common method of allocating funds to school boards. In this model, each school board receives a set amount of funding for each student enrolled in the district. Needs-based funding allocates funds based on the needs of their students. Foundation funding allocates a set amount to cover the basic costs of education, including such things as salaries for teachers and administrators, textbooks, and supplies. Categorical grants allocate funding for specific programs or initiatives such as language and cultural programming.
The combination of funding methods provides a balance of stable base funding and focused support for specific needs and priorities, allowing for adjustments to reflect the differences in student populations among school districts. The methods determine the allocation of funding to districts, but, barring restrictions imposed by government, school boards can spend the funds as they choose. The principal factor limiting board discretion is the fact that in public education most of the costs are labour related, leaving comparatively little room for discretionary funding.
The number of needs-based and categorical funding categories tends to increase over time, engendering increasingly complex formulas and reporting requirements. There comes a point at which it is prudent to review the funding allocation system to see if it can be simplified. Simplification can reduce administrative burden and increase understanding, but it won’t increase funding. So, when someone calls for a review of the funding allocation model currently in use, it is naïve to expect that it will result in increased funding.
To justify a funding increase, it is
necessary to demonstrate that existing resources are not sufficient to meet
real costs or to demonstrate how improvements in student achievement and
well-being can be achieved by providing additional funding. Demonstrating that
costs have increased relative to revenues is relatively easy to do. Demonstrating
that additional funding will materially improve student achievement and
well-being is more challenging because school boards are not accustomed to
evaluating program effectiveness. Program evaluations rarely emanate from the
desire of a school board to know what is working and what is not.