About That Common Sense That’s Lacking
A week ago, we questioned Richmond’s political class and their slew of spending plans on the table even though the state faces a half-billion deficit. One of the so-called "needs" is to increase spending for the so-called biennial re-benchmarking of the education Standards of Quality (SOQ).
The General Assembly’s legislative auditors December 2005 special report on SOQ costs (requires Adobe) provides a detailed analysis of these costs. Very briefly:
“Article VIII of the Constitution of Virginia requires that Standards of Quality (SOQ) for the school divisions “shall be determined and prescribed from time to time by the Board of Education, subject to revision only by the General Assembly.” The standards, which apply to elementary and secondary schools, address various education matters, including the availability of different types of staff and resources. The costs of the SOQ are to be determined and apportioned by the General Assembly between the State and local units of government.
“After determining SOQ costs, the State currently contributes to the costs in two ways. First, it provides State-apportioned sales tax dollars. Second, it pays an average 55 percent of the remaining SOQ costs (the actual percentage varies from locality to locality based on local ability to pay).”
It gets more complex, but that is the very short version. Additional information is available in the Virginia Association of Counties (VACo) September 15 issue of County Connections (Adobe). VACo is the lobbying organization for Virginia’s counties. The newsletter includes this:
“Re-benchmarking will be a top budget priority for VACo in 2008. The state updates – or readjusts for inflationary and new costs – the SOQ every two years coinciding with the new biennial budget. The standards prescribe the state mandated minimum requirements for learning. All 95 counties exceed the state mandated minimum requirements and associated costs.”
The Claire Booth Luce Policy Institute published a study in December 2005 (Adobe) in which they advocated a change from the “current staff-based SOQ funding methodology” (currently used by only four states; adopted when there was little emphasis on achievement and performance) to a “student-based” funding formula. According to the study:
“A student-based state SOQ funding methodology substantially improves budgetary transparency and is compatible with long-standing state sales tax and composite index ability-to-pay adjustments. It is also more equitable to students and offers local schools the flexibility to organize school programs and staffing patters around the educational needs of their student populations.”
Read the Claire Booth Luce study. We think you'll agree it meets the common sense test.