The Ghosts in the Education Funding Machine
This morning I interviewed two of the plaintiffs in the Indiana school funding lawsuit and their attorney. The interview will be posted later at wxnt.com. I also spoke with Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller about the litigation as well.
After spending the weekend doing some legal research and actually talking to the parties involved, I am convinced that while the plaintiffs may have a legitimate concern with the way schools are funded in Indiana, I frankly don’t see how they win.
Fundamentally, they have an issue with the “deghoster” portion of the school funding formula. Deghoster is a term that describes what happens when a student leaves one school district and goes to another one and how money follows the student. In a nutshell let’s say the state gives a district $9,000 a year to educate each student. If the student leaves one district and goes to another, the $9,000 doesn’t automatically transfer. The district losing the student doesn’t have all its funding taken away, it’s phased out over a three year period.
According to the plaintiffs, because of that deghoster provision of the formula the state is paying for the equivalent of 16,000 students who don’t exist to the tune of about $100 million. They say that money should be spent on students who exist. Districts losing students say the deghoster is necessary because when they lose students, it happens over the district, not in one school or classroom. And they still have the same labor costs regardless.
I can see both sides of the issue and if I were a growing school district, in the immortals words of that annoying commercial, it’s my money and I want it now. However, I don’t see how you get it going to court. Past case law on this is pretty clear, the Indiana Constitution calls for a “general and uniform” system of school funding, not equal. And in it’s most recent ruling on the subject, the Court gave wide deference to the legislature when it comes to school funding.
Unless there is discrimination in education funding based on race, sex or some other protected status, I don’t see how the plaintiffs win. Granted stranger things have happened, but they don’t happen often and I don’t see it happening here.
