(Baton Rouge – March 7, 2013) In a solid show of opposition to the $3.46 billion school funding plan proposed by State Superintendent of Education John White, three major stakeholders agreed today that his Minimum Foundation Program formula should be rejected and that an MFP study committee should be revived.
Louisiana Federation of Teachers President Steve Monaghan, Louisiana School Boards Association Executive Director Scott Richard and Louisiana Association of School Superintendents President Michael Faulk all agreed that the spending formula cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny and does not meet the educational needs of Louisiana’s school children.
In a partial victory for the stakeholders, a committee of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education agreed to consider creating an MFP study panel at next month’s board meeting. An MFP advisory panel existed in the past, but has not met since 2007.
When it came to adoption of the MFP, however, the committee voted 8-3 to send the proposal to the legislature, which has the option of approving or denying, but not amending, the formula. The vote is expected to be formalized at Friday’s BESE meeting.
The vote came after long debate. Two contentious issues kept opponents and supporters talking for nearly seven hours. One was the inclusion of funding for private and religious school vouchers in the formula. A state court has already ruled that it is unconstitutional to spend MFP money on vouchers, and the State Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the ruling on March 19.
The second issue involves a radical restructuring of the way the MFP funds special education programs. A number of parents and special education advocates questioned the new plan, which bases funding on students’ type of disability, whether or not they are in a regular classroom, and the academic performance of their school. The current MFP
Opponents said they fear the plan will result in reduced special education services in school systems.
In his comments to the committee, LFT President Steve Monaghan said the message behind this year’s MFP “is murky at best,” given that important elements that were included in the past have been deleted.
For the first time, Monaghan said, this MFP omits the language in the State Constitution that defines the formula as the state’s funding mechanism for public elementary and secondary schools. That matters, he said, because of the recent ruling against the voucher program and the pending supreme court hearing.
“If we had lost that case,” Monaghan said, “I am certain that the district court’s words would be bandied about” in the MFP.
Additionally, he said, “for the fifth straight year, the MFP has been frozen. Teachers and students alike are suffering in school districts because of it. We have seen an acceleration of teachers leaving the classroom.”
Monaghan also spoke about the “surgical removal” of language that has been in every previous formula requiring a 2.75% increase in funding if the legislature and BESE cannot agree on the formula.
“It is an incentive for the legislature to address your recommendation to appropriately fund public education,” Monaghan said.
BESE’s failure to meet a self-imposed deadline to raise spending for at-risk children is one of the great disappointmwents in the MFP, the LFT president said.
Monaghan pointed out that in 2007, BESE set a five-year goal to provide additional funding for at-risk children. The amount of the increase, four percent of the budget, was established through reliable research.
In 2008, he said, the goal remained five years in the future. In 2009 and in 2010, it was a four-year goal. In the 2012 MFP, the goal was stretched to seven years away.
“And guess what,” Monaghan said, “this year it’s not a goal. It’s not in the formula any more, and so we’re not moving toward any target.”
Monaghan concluded with a plea to seek to provide not just a minimum budget for education, but to “actually find out what it really costs to deliver quality education…just the goal of delivering quality to every child.”