Backpack Education Funding

There are more ways to cut funding to education than by sending education money to non-education entities. It can also be done by diverting the revenue up stream. Each time there is another tax credit offered to corporations or individual tax payers from their income tax, the source of education funds is more choked off.

Keep this in mind each time you hear tax credit discussions during the legislation. They are often used to stimulate an industry (such as recycling projects) or to give relief to those in need (such as families of the disabled). Tax credits are different from tax deductions. Tax credits are subtracted from the tax bill rather than from the income on which taxes are calculated. Tax deductions reduce tax revenue a little, tax credits reduce tax revenue a lot.

In this post, I will focus on “backpack funding” (No, the legislature is not buying backpacks for the kids to carry their books home!) This is the name used for a concept of how education funds are spent. The term “backpack” is applied because it provides that students each receive a finite credit for their publicly-funded education. They then take the funding with them where ever they go.

The current bill that proposes this concept is HB 123, titled “Education Savings Accounts” sponsored by Representative John Dougall. Instead of credits or vouchers in a backpack, Rep. Dougall proposes in his bill that each high school student receive a savings account, receiving the funding for each year of his or her secondary education at the beginning of that year, starting with 9th grade. For each class that the student attends, certain amounts of money are deducted from the savings account. Public schools would receive their established per class fee; online class providers could set their own fees. Students would also be allowed to enroll at any public school they want and public schools would not be allowed to charge higher fees for part-time students than for full-time students.

The maximum that a full schedule could cost would be $6,400. If a student’s SEOP determines that he will graduate early, he can access funds for future years as well. However, when the money is gone, it is gone and the student is on his own if he hasn’t earned a high school diploma by then.

It looks like public schools would not receive class funds for any released time instruction, such as seminary, internships, or courses at Applied Technology Colleges or concurrent enrollment. It allows students to apply money from their accounts for class fees normally charged for courses at their high school, so I suppose it will cover fees such as the choir robe rental fees, lab fees for chemistry, band instrument rental, etc. My high school daughter had about $200 of fees for academic classes this year that came out of our pocket. If she decides to participate in the International Baccalaureate program, my out of pocket fees will be higher still. If high school fees are now to be paid by public education funds, $6,400 won’t go as far as it used to.

In addition, students would be able to apply money from these accounts to “fees, deposits, or other charges” for activities sponsored by the school or district. That means they can apply these funds to football uniforms and equipment, golf green fees, drivers education, or cheerleader expenses. If you hate fundraisers like I do, it may sound welcome but imagine how these will soak up the account!

There are a number of additional problematic sections in this bill.
* It is not clear whether students can be charged for participating in extracurricular activities if they choose not to charge it to their “savings account”.
* It definitely would affect eligibility for extracurricular activities (for example, sports), and I wonder if the schools’ response will be to discontinue some of them.
* It creates a complex banking responsibility for the State Office of Education to track and invoice financial information for every student and each class they take, following up on class eligibility and remitting quarterly payments to every school and eligible course provider. They also must give each student access to online information about the balance of his or her account. This would become a whole new, massive department in the State Office.
* It also removes funding for Electronic High School, concurrent enrollment or school-sponsored ATC courses. Each participant interested in online courses or classes offered at colleges would enroll through the individual course providers and the State Office of Education.
* Students eligible for these accounts include those currently in public and private schools, as well as home schooled students – many more than are currently funded in public schools now.
* Finally, all these changes are to be implemented by July of this year.

There is no fiscal note attached to this bill; too much of its cost is unknown. There is also no indication that this sort of reorganization of Public Education will benefit students’ education. While it claims to provide greater choices for education, the financial strains on public education would certainly result in fewer choices and/or poorer quality in its offerings.