Stress of School District Funding During Covid-19 Made Worse by Bad Policy
A recent article in The Oklahoman discussed the financial impact of the mid-year funding adjustment for Oklahoma school districts. School administrators bemoaned the adjustment, citing the hardships of the pandemic. This reduction should come as no surprise, however, considering how Oklahoma’s school district funding works.
State appropriated school district funding is allocated based on Weighted Average Daily Membership (WADM), a convoluted “per student” measure. WADM is then used to calculate how much funding a school district will receive from the state. Basically, the more students there are in a district, the more money the district will receive. Therefore, if a district loses students, it will receive less funding, and if a district gains students, it will receive more funding.
In 2020, Oklahoma school districts decided to shut-down in-person learning but were not adequately prepared to teach students virtually; consequently, they lost students to schools that did virtual schooling better. Over 60,000 students left traditional public schools and enrolled in various charter schools. Therefore, the traditional districts’ enrollment fell while charter school enrollment rose. As a result, based on our discussion of formula funding above, you would think that traditional school districts would lose funding and charter schools would gain.
Read more »by Muskogee Politico - March 27, 2021 at 08:16PM
1889 Institute: School district funding during Covid-19 made worse by bad policy
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