Lansing — Senate Democrats proposed Tuesday a long-term funding formula for Michigan’s schools, unveiling a plan that would direct an increasing share of tax dollars to districts with large numbers of students living in poverty or who don’t speak English at home.
The bills, spearheaded by Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, came as work on the next state budget has intensified in the Capitol in recent days, with Republicans who control the House advancing their own ideas for bankrolling education.
Usually, school districts get a certain amount of money for each student and then additional dollars through line items that can change from year to year depending on the focus of the Legislature.
Camilleri, a former teacher, wants to change state law to gradually increase schools’ pupil counts over the next 15 years in the funding formula, based on the number of English language learners and economically disadvantaged students in their buildings.
“This is not just a suggestion,” Camilleri said. “This is where we are going, to have a road map.
“We’ve heard this loud and clear from business, from labor and from other states: When a state adopted a long-term plan, that is when they saw long-term outcomes for their kids.”
The Senate’s School Aid Fund proposal for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, totals $22 billion, up from $21.3 billion in the current year. There would be a $381 million boost for a 2.5% hike in the foundation allowance, the base amount of per-student money going to each school, and a $339 million boost to increase at-risk and English-language-learner funding, as part of the push for the proposed weighted funding formula.
Camilleri introduced a separate bill that would put the new formula into law for the next 15 years.
“We believe that accelerating the growth in those two categories is really going to address the equity issues that we see in our school districts,” Camilleri said.
Democrats in the Senate majority are keeping more School Aid dollars for K-12 education than the House is, Camilleri said. In the past, the Legislature has used School Aid money to help fund universities or community colleges.
It’s unclear how the full budget proposal will work because not all of the bills have been released yet.
House Republicans have their own funding plan for Michigan schools
The Republican-led House proposed Tuesday its own $21.5 billion School Aid spending plan, without the weighted formula offered by the Democratic-led Senate.
The House proposal would instead slightly increase funding for intermediate school districts and early learning programs by 2.5% to meet some of the needs the weighted formula seeks to address.
But state Rep. Tim Kelly, the Saginaw Township Republican who leads the House’s K-12 budgeting process, said there may be opportunities for negotiations on the weighted formula.
“I think the weighted formula is probably something that we do here, but we also, I think, have some opportunities for points of differences,” Kelly said.
State Rep. Carol Glanville, a Walker Democrat who serves as minority vice chair for the K-12 budget committee, said she had “serious concerns” that the weighted formula was not included in the proposed House spending plan.
“This is something that we discussed in committee that I thought the chair was supportive of,” Glanville said.
The House budget parallels both the governor’s and the Senate’s proposed spending plans in increasing the per-pupil foundation allowance from $10,050 to $10,300 per student. But the House plan extends the same foundation allowance to cyber schools, while the governor’s proposal would lower the allowance for cyber students.
The House budget largely meets or exceeds Whitmer’s recommendations for literacy supports, but differs in that the House names specific literacy curriculum programs that schools must use with the roughly $150 million in literacy support funding available.
Kelly said the programs are those employed by the state of Mississippi, which has garnered attention in recent years for boosting its 4th-grade reading scores. The curriculum programs outlined in a House Fiscal Agency analysis of the budget proposal include Amplify CKLA, HMH Into Reading, Savvas Literacy Programs, Great Minds Wit & Wisdom, and EL Education K-8 Language Arts Curriculum.
“Experts that I often hear from also want to mirror what Mississippi has done, so here’s an explicit example to use,” Kelly said in committee Tuesday, when asked whether any Michigan experts were consulted on what specific curriculum should be used.
The House proposal also included about $40 million for a pilot program that would distribute grants to districts to reimburse parents for private tutoring for at-risk students.
The House and Senate plans will next be considered by the two chambers’ appropriations committees. Eventually, the leaders of the House and Senate will have to reach a compromise.
In a statement, Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance, said the Senate budget and a recommendation from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer “would create true weighted formulas in the Michigan school aid budget for the first time, providing real budget certainty and sustainability to schools that desperately need it to make longer-term plans.”
cmauger@detroitnews.com
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan Senate Democrats propose long-term funding plan for schools
Reporting by Craig Mauger and Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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