About two years ago I wrote a forum article about school funding equity and quite a bit has happened.
Our group, Citizens for Equity, has met, organized, mobilized, and spread our message across the state. We have a Web site, a bank account, and a regular meeting schedule. We now have the attention of the governor, the Senate and the House, all of whom have proposed equity provisions in this year's budget.
However, the fight is about to get much more difficult as schools around the state that have never experienced the drastic budget cuts to which we have become accustomed, start having to trim their budgets.
As evidence of this fight, you need only read a recent forum written by a Birmingham School Board member, Robert Lawrence. While accusing the Record-Eagle of making a "blatant error ... of astonishing ignorance or purposeful manipulation," Mr. Lawrence himself misstates the current funding situation through his own purposeful manipulation.
To read his writings, one would think that Birmingham (and other districts) deserve more money because they pay more in taxes. This is because Birmingham is what is known as a "contributing" school district -- they contribute more in local taxes.
Following this logic, Traverse City should get more per student than other surrounding districts because they too are a "contributing" school district -- they contribute more in taxes than they receive in school funding.
However, the point is moot and has no place in this discussion because tax-based funding was ended in 1994 with Proposal A, which promised equitable funding for all districts in Michigan.
According to the State of Michigan, as of the current school year:
•The base per-pupil funding is $7,204
•Birmingham's rate is $12,307 per pupil
•Birmingham receives $40,937,431 over and above the base per pupil amount
•Traverse City, Benzie, Boyne Falls, Petoskey, Mesick, Suttons Bay, Kingsley, Buckley, Howell, Grandville, Bay City and 378 other districts in the state receive $0 over and above the base per pupil amount
All Michigan school districts are held to the same standards and graduation requirements, but Michigan's funding system discriminates against students by zip code.
One point Lawrence and I can agree on is that Michigan needs to make K-12 funding a true priority. We can begin by, at the minimum, instituting the 2X formula that Gov. Granholm has proposed, a $108 increase per pupil plus an additional $108 per student for lower funded districts. At this rate we could achieve equity in about 46 years ... wait a minute ... on second thought, maybe we should institute a 5X formula.
Maybe Birmingham and the rest of the southeast districts "struggling" with budget cuts should take a page from our book and learn how to manage quality schools on a shoestring budget.
Don't get me wrong, we don't want to bring them down, but we sure would like a chance to compete on an even playing field.
About the author: Kristie Bach is vice president and co-founder of Citizens for Equity. She is a drama teacher at Traverse City West Senior High and has two children who have gone through the public schools in Traverse City.
About the forum: The forum is a periodic column of opinion written by Record-Eagle readers in their areas of interest or expertise. Submissions of 500 words or less may be made by e-mailing letters@record-eagle.com. Please include biographical information and a photo.
Print this story
E-mail this story
