Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools

November 12, 2008

Over the past quarter century, Ohio-following national trends-has added an average of $760 million per year to K-12 education. In no year has a funding increase been less than $376 million (see here). In ten years, Ohio has seen its average per-pupil expenditure, using inflation-adjusted dollars, rise 25 percent (from $7,500 in 1997 to about $10,000 in 2007, see Graph I below).  In 2007, Ohio spent $16.8 billion on public education-some $1,930 for every adult living in the state.

This new spending, however, has not resulted in commensurate levels of student achievement growth. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Ohio students have made slight gains over the past fifteen years in math achievement, though these gains do not outpace the national average and still leave well over half of all students below the proficiency bar.  Ohio's progress in reading has been slower, and according to NAEP just 36 percent of Ohio students in fourth and eighth grade are proficient at reading (see here).

Despite this increased spending and static achievement gains, school districts in the Buckeye State face unpredictable funding realities and real fiscal pain. Considering Ohio's troubled economy it is fair to ask if state government and its citizens can maintain the pace of the recent past.

For these reasons, Gov. Ted Strickland's long-awaited school-funding proposal is being anxiously anticipated and it will surely jump-start the school-funding debate when it is released in early