Fix the Flawed Funding Formula!

SPRING is season for announcing funding to schools in Canadian provinces. Some provinces, such as Manitoba, announce funding early in calendar year for following school year, but in most provinces funding for schools is announced following release of provincial budget. This, in turn, usually follows release of federal budget, which occurred in Canada this year late in February, just as I was writing this column. By time you read this in May, just about all provinces will have announced their 2008-09 school funding. Schools in Canada today are funded at reasonable, though not extravagant, levels. However, level does vary significantly from one province to another. Canada now spends about $50 billion per year on its schools, which is about $10,000 per student per year or about 3.5% of our gross domestic product. On most international measures, our spending is about at middle among OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Given Canadian students' excellent results on international tests, Canadian school system provides good value for money. Almost all money for Canadian public schools comes from provincial governments. In only two provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, is a significant share of school funding still derived from property taxes levied by local school boards, though substantial local funding was norm in Canada until 1980s and 1990s. Because school districts get their money from provincial governments, not only does total amount of money matter, but so does formula through which it is allocated. Provincial governments give a great deal of attention to their annual decisions on education funding. After all, this is one of biggest single items in their budgets and also one that gets a lot of public attention because many people are connected with schools in one way or another--as students, parents, extended family, or staff. Making funding decisions and announcements were among most important things I did as a senior official in two Canadian governments. Yet no matter what announcement was, dominant reaction from education sector always seemed to be disappointment. And same result holds in every other province today. When it comes to funding schools, it's hard to please anyone, let alone everyone. In both provinces where I worked in government, Manitoba and Ontario, education sector argued that funding formula used by province was problem and had to be changed. In making this claim education groups were aided and abetted by media, who liked stories on conflict over funding and whose understanding of real mechanics of school funding tended to be quite limited. In Manitoba, provincial funding formula was usually described by a major newspaper as the complex and convoluted funding formula, as if that were its official name. I could imagine minister intoning, Today I am pleased to announce our Complex and Convoluted Funding known as CCFF for short. In Ontario in last two years, media have often referred to provincial funding formula as Flawed Funding Formula, based on constant repetition of this assertion by various parties in education system. In reality there are several reasons why no funding formula and no funding announcement will ever satisfy education sector. And there are some big reasons why this endless dispute over money is a problem for whole education sector. Let's start with inherent inadequacy of any school funding scheme. Schools as human service organizations will never have enough money to do everything they would like to do for their students. No matter how much is currently being done, it's easy to see how a new program, or some more staff, or better facilities would help even more. No matter how much is spent on schools--and whether purely for reasons of selfinterest or not-- people in education will want and see need for more. …

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