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Stephen Franklin
EDAM 732 Fiscal Planning and Facilities Management
Dr. Jindra
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Large school districts have experienced budgeting problems since the baby-boomer
generation. Emphasis on various state and federal mandates, the accompanying accountability
measures, and the shift in public school funding, particularly in California have placed even
greater strains on already tight budgets. For many urban cities, the shift in demographics from
city centers to suburban areas resulted in a redirected or dwindling tax base away from urban
cities. This dwindling tax base manifests at a time in which urban school districts are faced with
a poorer student population with diverse and expensive educational needs. The costs of services,
mandated through the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (NEA, 2005) continue to increase while resources decrease.
Initially the federal government through IDEA and ESEA promised the necessary funding,
The awareness of student diversity created by IDEA and ESEA is not the problem. The
problem lies in the recognition of an increased need of additional funding to address and provide
the instructional services created by these federal enactments, combined with funding that has
not fully materialized. Weighted Student Formula (WSF) as a budgeting process is being
introduced across the United States to increase the equity of school site funding while living
within tighter state education budgets. WSF is also know by several other names, a partial listing
Since the early 1970s there have been many attempts in California to address student
funding. In 1972 California Senate Bill 90 (Ed Source, 2005) designed to establish a ceiling on
the amount of general fund monies a district could spend on its students for educational
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purposes. This move was designed to fill the bucket for districts that primarily served low
income communities, and shield school district funding from the vagrancies of local property
tax. In the landmark 1977 case, Serrano v. Priest it was determined that filling the bucket was
not enough, as inequities still existed across school districts pertaining to district student
spending. Proposition 13 passed in 1978 placed a limit on the amount of property tax that could
education funding levels at 40 percent. All of these legislative actions and court cases had one
thing in common, they all sought to address the continuing disparities in student spending across
school districts.
Weighted Student Formula (WSF) has been in use throughout the United Kingdom for
almost 2 decades and in several provinces of Canada (Reason Foundation, 2009). By 2009 WSF
initiatives existed in 14 school districts throughout the United States, and the state of Hawaii.
Since then states such as California, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, New Jersey, South
Carolina and the city of Philadelphia have either implemented WSF funding models or have
expressed interest in doing so. The central focus of WSF funding is that dollars versus staffing
follow students into schools, site principals are provided with more budgeting autonomy, and
pupil funding is weighted to ensure additional funding is allocated for students with more
expensive educational needs (Snell, 2013). In the state of California students who warrant
additional funding under WSF include: English learners (EL), Special education and low socio-
economic status (low SES). In California WSF initiatives are linked to the state implementation
of Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) that Governor Brown initiated with school year 2013-
2014 in which school districts receive additional funding based on the demographic make-up of
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While distributing more funds to districts based on student demographics is a start, it
does not ensure these extra funds reach the actual schools or students themselves. Equity in
school funding relates to the concept of equal treatment of equals (NEA, 2005, p. 5).
Essentially, WSF funding is part of broader reform focused on decentralization in which funding
follows students in and out of whichever school they attend, as opposed to being based on an
aggregate of district-wide demographics. In the traditional model of school site staffing and
funding, the full-time teacher equivalent (FTE) model determined the amount of staffing and
funding based on the staffing a school site received. Using the following example;
A school of 1,500 students staffed based on this model would look like the following
If a district allocates $ 5,000 per student, the school with 75 staff positions would receive
$375,000 in general funding. This may or may not be enough to address the unique needs of a
particular school site. Schools in wealthier areas of the district with possibly lower numbers of
special education or EL would receive the same amount of funding as schools with higher
percentages of students with increased needs. Under a WSF funding model the staffing formula
would remain the same, however, per student funding would be based (in California) on the
percentages of qualifying students such as: ELs, Special education and low SES. The table below
reflects how additional funding would be apportioned to each school based on site demographics,
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Figure 1 WSF Variations in Funding When Other Categories are Added (NEA, 2005)
Under WSF authority over the use of funds would rest with the principal to attain
educational goals, for which s/he would be accountable. Along with this increased accountability
is increased parent choice based on educational outcomes at specific schools. Part of this
budgetary authority would be tied to actual versus average salaries. In the traditional FTE
funding model, teacher and presumably other staff salaries are averaged out, which means more
popular schools with more senior teachers are often subsidized by less popular school with less
senior teachers (Reason Foundation, 2009). Under the FTE model, and in most districts school
site funding is based on an average teacher salary, lets use $50,000. If one school has ten first
year teachers, and another school has ten fifth year teachers, both schools are charged $500,000.
Under WSF funding, a school with less senior teachers, and therefore less expensive, would be
charged actual salaries. This would result in extra funding being made available to that school, in
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addition to the WSF, allowing the principal discretion to invest in more teacher training, the arts
or even hire additional teachers based on site need. In their report Reason Foundation (2009)
determined, the more unlocked dollars a principal controls, the more autonomy that principal
has over designing the school to meet the needs of the students in the school (p. 3).
however, to improve student learning outcomes families must have increased choice between
schools. School choice acts as an additional accountability measure, in that parents are able to
leave schools that are not serving their students effectively, and enroll at higher performing
school. Schools that are less popular due to varied reasons have an incentive to improve to attract
and retain students and families. This increased choice would also inform the district which
school are being more successful and are therefore valued by families.
Additionally, schools which are not improving or fail to consistently meet the objective
established jointly between the principal and district, could be closed or merged with higher
performing schools. The end result would be increased student learning outcomes, and a
redirection of increased resources to higher performing schools based on fewer district schools to
fund and staff. Discussion of WSF should also include the companion component of School-
Based Management (SBM). Both WSF and SBM are both linked to decentralization, the two are
not the same nor do both components need to be implemented to achieve increased student
learning outcomes under WSF. WSF is a method for allocating resources to school sites, whereas
SBM is a method for managing resources once they are at the school site. While both
components do not need to coexist, using SBM in a district that employs WSF has been linked to
greater efficiency and effectiveness (NEA, 2005). Incorporating SBM along with WSF does
require a well-designed training for principals (Ouchi et al, 2002 as cited by NEA, 2005).
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In conclusion WSF funding has not been in existence long enough in the United States to
determine its effectiveness at achieving a more balanced funding playing field. WSF does show
promise as it places focus on the individual student, as opposed to the average student. While
WSF seeks to address equity in funding, it does not address adequacy. Equity places focus on
fairness, adequacy places focus on whether funding is sufficient to meet stated educational
outcomes. A final concern mirrors the concern with SBM and well-designed training. For the
implementation of WSF the question asks, are there enough resources to provide the level of
training necessary to effectively and successfully implement WSF funding practices. That said
WSF is a huge step in the right direction and is worthy of further pursuits to implement.
References
National Education Association. (2005, April). Weighted student formula (wsf): What is it
and how does it impact educational programs in large urban districts? Retrieved from
http://www.nea.org/books
Ouchi, W.G., Cooper, B.S., Segal, L.G., DeRoche, T., Brown, C., & Galvin, E. (2003).
http://www. reason.org/files/wsf/overview
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Snell, L. (2013, May). Weighted student funding for California: Three reasons governor browns
school funding plan is better than the status quo and three reasons to make the plan even