Funding of Schools in the Georgia State

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Fiscal issues impacting the state of Georgia school funding

The State of Georgia has been committed to improving standards of education within the state by developing a funding formula that would ensure that all the needs of schools are adequately met. However, some recent fiscal trends and issues have impacted on the states school funding formula, which in turn have affected the schools budget. According to Houck, Rolle, and Jiang (2010), the State of Georgia, like many other states in the country, have been financially constrained, especially following the recent economic recession that affected the economy of the country. This forced the state to review its funding structure to schools within this country.

The states government realized that it had no option but to reduce its funding on education sector. This meant that the government had to come up with a new fiscal policy that reduced allocation of funds to schools. The funding formula changed from the initial approach where all schools were allocated a specific amount of money, to an approach where allocation of funds was based on the needs of the schools. This meant that schools that were believed to be having the capacity to fund most of their projects were given a lower percentage of funds.

The states government also introduced a funding formula which demanded that part of the funds used by some schools had to come from local sources. This was something that was new to most of the schools administrations. They had to reevaluate their policies in order to find ways of funding their activities from local sources. These drastic measures came at a time when these schools least expected a reduction of funding from the state government. According to Toutkoushian and Michael (2008), most of the state officials did not expect that their funding will be reduced at a time when they were facing financial constraints with their current budget. The schools administrations were negatively affected by this move.

Some of the local sources of funds that they were directed to source their funding from were not reliable. It forced the administrations of the affected schools to improvise ways of funding their activities. The report by Verstegen and Jordan (2009) indicate that the State of Georgia has been poorly ranked among other states in the quality of education and the graduates they produce. This may have some direct relation with the reduced funding from the states government.

It is a clear indication that the performance of students and the schools in general depend on the effort put in place by the government. If the government puts little effort, then this will be reflected in the poor performance. Some schools were always forced to cut down their budget, meaning that they had to reduce some of their educational activities. The strained budget also meant that students could not be exposed to some of the co-curriculum, something that has been blamed for the poor performance.

An analysis done Sielke (2004) on the current fiscal trends in this state indicates that the current formula used to fund schools in Georgia is one of the best approaches in the United States. This report indicates that before the application of this new approach, many schools were being awarded amount of money that was way above their financial needs. Some schools could easily get alternative funding, making the funds from the state government unnecessary.

However, they still kept receiving states funding to cater for unnecessary luxuries that do not add value to education. Sielke (2004) argues that the recent report that Georgia is performing poorly in the education sector should not be associated to the reduced funding from the state. This is so because even before the reduction took place, the state was not performing any better. In fact, the state has achieved some little improvement in its education system within the last one year, but this was after the reduction in funds. The blame on this poor performance should be attributed to the structural issues in the education system. Addressing these structural issues does not need extra funding. The relevant stakeholders must commit themselves to changing the systems in order to reflect the changing trends in the education sector.

Scholars and educational experts have had positive comments about the new fiscal trends used by this state to fund schools. There are schools that have higher needs of funds than others. Awarding the same amount of money to all schools without following a specific criterion, is unfair for schools with higher needs. Reising (2002) says, Students with greater levels of need should be assigned to academic programs with smaller class sizes, and, therefore, should be allocated more funding. This is what the states new funding program is following. This new funding formula focuses on needs of the schools before issuing funds. This means that cases where schools would receive more money than they need has been eliminated. This does not only reduce extravagance in schools, but also encourages accountability and discipline in the administration of schools. The schools are reminded that the economic resources are scarce, and they have to learn how to maximize their limited funds.

Consolidating school districts within a state or privatizing public education elements

The current burden to fund public education relies on the tax payers within the state. As a superintendent of schools, it is a fact that the expenditure of the state on education has been reduced because of fundamental reasons. However, it has been a challenge trying to convince both sides on the best approach to be taken in funding schools. The states government is convinced that the best approach to take is to reduce the amount of its budget on schools funding. The principals and other schools administrations believe that this amount should be increased. As the districts superintendent of education, I often find myself between the two forces that demand that I have to understand them.

I believe that consolidation of school districts within the state or privatization of various elements of public education offers a real solution to the existing problems in funding the schools. It is important to note that although these are two different approaches, they have a number of similarities. Both approaches seek to withdraw the financial responsibility of the schools from the states government to stakeholders who believe that they have a role to play in the education system. This does not only reduce states agents to education department, but also encourages governance of the schools as entities that are semi-independent from the state (Adams & Foster, 2002). This will cut the costs of operations, reducing the burden they have on education.

According to Byrnes (2009), consolidation of school districts within the state has been confirmed as one of the ways of improving efficiency of running schools. The consolidation helps the schools fiscal budget to be made at lower levels that enable the stakeholders understand the specific needs of the individual institutions. This has a similar impact to privatization of some elements of public education. When the schools are privatized, it becomes possible to understand specific areas that are redundant and can be eliminated to ensure that there is efficiency in administration (Byrnes, 2009). This will help in further reduction of funds needed for the schools.

According to Kaufmann (2012), one of the main benefits of consolidating school districts within a state is that it results into higher educational quality. This is so because it offers the relevant stakeholders an opportunity to have greater participatory roles in the management of schools. The centralized system of managing the district schools makes it easy to develop a comprehensive program that can be used to boost education in the entire state. This will help improve the current poor performance that has been witnessed in the recent past. This has a similar impact to what privatization will have on the education system.

According to McKinley and Phillis (2008), privatization of some elements of public schools will result in a scenario where the responsibility of those elements is taken away from the state government to individuals who accept to be part of such administrations. This means that the cost of those elements will be met by the individuals other than the state. It is also a fact that privatization will improve performance of individual schools within the state.

Byrnes (2009) says that, one of the reasons why some public schools have been performing poorly is because of limited strict supervision from the superior authorities. Some of the administrators feel that they do not owe anyone any explanation in case of poor performance. This will change in case some of the elements are privatized. The administrations of these schools will find themselves under much heat trying to meet the needs of the stakeholders. The stakeholders will need good results out of their investment. This will result into improved performance of the schools.

Consolidation of school districts within a state has some significant differences with privatization of various elements of public schools. One such difference is that, while consolidation of the district schools seeks to centralize management of schools, privatization seeks to decentralize this management. As the superintendent of schools, it is a fact that this may be appropriate under different circumstances. Privatization would be appropriate in cases where the main focus is to cut government expenditure in schools, while consolidation would be more appropriate if the focus is to develop similar programs that would help improve the education system. Another fundamental difference between consolidation and privatization is on the funding. When some elements on public schools are privatized, those elements will be fully funded by private individuals. However, consolidation of school districts will still need some form of government funding.

Lacireno (2006) says that consolidation of schools is one of the best approaches that can be used to ensure that a state improves its academic performance of all schools in a universal way. However, privatization promotes individualism, where performance of schools will be based on the effort of the individual schools. I would recommend that the state government should consider privatization of some school elements as a way of cutting costs and improving efficiency of schools in this state.

References

Adams, J. & Foster, M. (2002). District Size and State Educational Costs: Should Consolidation Follow School Finance Reform? Journal of Education Finance, 27(3), 833-855. Web.

Byrnes, V. (2009). Getting a Feel for the Market: The Use of Privatized School Management in Philadelphia. American Journal of Education, 115(3), 437-455. Web.

Houck, E., Rolle, A., & Jiang, H. (2010). Examining School District Efficiency in Georgia. Journal of Education Finance, 35(4), 331-357. Web.

Kaufmann, J. (2012). A Post-structural Ethical Analysis of Antibullying Legislation in the State of Georgia Free content Quick View. International Review of Qualitative Research, 5(1), 29-38. Web.

Lacireno, N. (2006). Charter School Enrollments in Context: An Exploration of Organization and Policy Influences. Peabody Journal of Education, 81(1), 79-102. Web.

McKinley, S. & Phillis, W. (2008). Collaboration in Search of a School Funding Remedy post DeRolph. Journal of Education Finance, 33(3), 311-329. Web.

Reising, B. (2002). School Funding. The Clearing House, 75(5), 220-228. Web.

Sielke, C. (2004). Rural Factors in State Funding Systems. Journal of Education Finance, 29(3), 223-236. Web.

Toutkoushian, R. & Michael, R. (2008). The Impacts of School Funding Formula Modifications on Equity, Fiscal Neutrality, and Adequacy. Journal of Education Finance, 33(4), 352-380. Web.

Verstegen, D. & Jordan, T. (2009). A Fifty-State Survey of School Finance Policies and Programs: An Overview. Journal of Education Finance, 34(3), 213-230. Web.

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Funding of Schools in the Georgia State

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