Educating myself on education

Last year we explored a number of questions that each of us might ask to learn more about our schools (you will find those questions on my website archived newsletters).

Education is certainly the largest budget item for you and me at the state level and for most of us likewise in our homes as we educated our children.

So why is it, with so much of our financial resource going towards education that the U.S. continues to slide below other developed or industrialized countries in quality or outcome assessments?

I confess that I was too busy to notice the change. I put my kids in a Lutheran school and was on the board to make sure they received quality instruction. I confess that I did not care enough about your children and the changes occurring in education right before our eyes.

Last year was the beginning of my educational epiphany. With the help of folks like Rosemary Ardinger, Tim McMurtrey, John Cook, Mike Sessions, Wayne Rush, John McFarlane and Mike Tomlin and you -- we can make a difference and I am committed to doing so. You don't know those people? Rosemary is an educator with invaluable experience willing to help me be more effective on educational issues. The others are our school district administrators and educators, the folks we ask to strike the balance between regulation and educational pragmatism in order to provide the best education for all of our students.

One of the ideas that recent educational legislation has produced that has not had a great impact in Idaho is the creation of Public Charter Schools and Public Charter School Districts. In Idaho, charters began as educational incubators; they were designed as places to try new ideas and to practice new methods in education, while they measured outcomes precisely.

Approved charters qualify for state educational funding and resources. They draw from the same pot of money that our local schools receive funding from.

Charters have been for the most part successful incubators, if not promulgators. One of the key elements of a charter's success is parental involvement and to some extent a unique student body.

So if parental involvement marks the success of a charter school or charter district, would more positive parental involvement produce increased success in traditional public schools?

So that you know, funding for schools is a complicated formula designed to provide the same outcome for each student. Small districts get a bit more money per educational unit to produce the same outcome as a large district with improved economies of scale. The result of the formula is a value per support unit per school district. One support unit funds 1.1 certificated instructional positions, 0.075 certificated administrators, and 0.375 classified staff as well as $25,696 in state discretionary funds.

Each support unit represents about $93,500 when you add the value of the staff positions to the discretionary funds.

Because grade level and district size values impact the teacher-to-student ratio factor, the average number of students per support unit is 20. This information is important and useful to each of us, used as a tool, to assure that every dollar of our precious educational resources is spent wisely.

As always, you may contact me at timcordersr@gmail.com,, tcorder@senate.idaho.gov, or "http://www.senatortimcorder.com, or 599-0427.

, office 332-1331. Please forward the letter and encourage people to look in their newspapers or on the website for this and previous newsletters.