My doubts about changing Alabama’s school funding formula

  I want to believe that Alabama lawmakers want to help disadvantaged students.

  Really, I do.

  The vehicle for this would be a significant change to the state’s distribution of public school money. Instead of linking funding to daily attendance, the state would try to match resources with needs.

  This would be the first major change in the formula in 30 years. Right now, it’s in the discussion stage. But it’s an approach other states use. And it could be helpful.

  Not only for kids in poverty, English language learners, or those with physical or intellectual disabilities, all of whom could benefit from the new model. It could also send much-needed aid to kids in rural public schools with collapsing enrollment.

  Education groups see real benefits to a new formula. And I don’t doubt their sincerity.

  The Alabama Legislature has also done some wise things with recent financial windfalls, putting a ton of funding behind pay raises for experienced teachers and investing in reading programs.

  So I want to accept all this talk as laser-focused on the best outcomes for public schools.

  But I live with a pile of memories from the statehouse, forming a sour, doubtful grimace.

  Like that night in 2013 when a school regulation bill approved by both chambers went into a committee and emerged as the Alabama Accountability Act, a bill taking money out of the Education Trust Fund and creating a permanent “failing schools” list. No one had voted for that. But the Republican majorities in the legislature timidly approved it a few hours later.

  Or those weeks in the spring of 2020 when white Republicans from rural and suburban districts did everything possible to stop a majority-Black city from making the choices it needs to serve its children.

  Right on top is the legislature’s swift move last year to divert over $100 million in taxpayer money — funding that would otherwise go to public schools — to private school tuition. (Fine — for parents to pay “for non-public education uses.” We know what they mean.)

  Is $100 million a fraction of the $9.3 billion Education Trust Fund budget? It is.

  Did the legislature also require that this allocation grow with demand? Yep.

  But certainly they imposed strict income requirements to ensure this program didn’t provide unneeded help to rich families sending their kids to Indian Springs School or Bayside Academy? Of course they didn’t.

  Whether by intention or accident, the Alabama Legislature has spent the last 11 years separating public money from public schools.

  We don’t have a lot of that money to begin with. The foundational problem of Alabama education is strict property tax caps that benefit a few big landowners at the expense of the entire state and make it very difficult for local governments to raise adequate local revenue for schools.

  But we’re not going to address that.

  So when I hear that we’re tinkering with the funding formula, I have questions.

  Start with poor students. What definition of poverty will we use?

  The federal poverty guidelines? Where a three-person household is considered poor if they make $25,820 a year or less? That’s a reasonable baseline.

  But what if we’re talking about “economically disadvantaged?” That’s far more nebulous. Just look at the Small Business Administration’s definition: anyone who’s made less than $400,000 in the previous three years or has assets under $6.5 million.

  I don’t expect the SBA to design an education program. But it’s easy to see the legislature taking that definition or making one up out of thin air in a way that benefits people who already have more than enough.

  Here’s where I’m most concerned: charter schools.

  One could create a charter school that caters exclusively to a poor population. Or English language learners. Or special education students. Maybe it incorporates another mission, like “workforce development.” But the effect is getting a lot of these populations into that charter.

  As a result, state money — for many Alabama communities, the only money available for schools — follows them there. And out of the local public school.

  This is bad enough if it’s a city school. But if your rural school is suddenly competing with Purifying Fire Charter Academy, it’s going to be a lot harder to get the money you need, particularly if the state uses hazy definitions of poverty or doesn’t set floors for individual school funding.

  If lawmakers tried to redo the funding formula in 2012, I’d have more confidence in this plan. Alabama has a long and shameful history of shortchanging students, and Black students in particular.

  But after years of seeing taxpayer money shifted away from students who need it and toward people who don’t, I have doubts.

  We’ll see how this proposal evolves and what gets presented to legislators next year (if anything makes it into legislation). Maybe we’ll see measures in the bill that protect what traditional public school funding remains. The track record isn’t promising.

  We need to do better for our public school students. And if legislators are serious about helping disadvantaged kids, they need to give us many more reasons to believe them.

  About the author: Brian Lyman is the editor of Alabama Reflector. He has covered Alabama politics since 2006 and worked at the Montgomery Advertiser, the Press-Register, and The Anniston Star. A 2024 Pulitzer finalist for Commentary, his work has also won awards from the Associated Press Managing Editors, the Alabama Press Association, and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. 

  This article was published by Alabama Reflector, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.