Students deserve more than funny-money plan

The leaders of the Missouri Legislature and the governor started bragging as soon as the 2005 legislative session ended May 13. The new foundation formula was at the top of their list. They cited it as the answer to Missouri's school funding problems.

Legislative leaders touted the improvements and the amount of money added, but I guess they're hoping you won't closely examine the new education funding formula.

A member from the St. Louis area recently e-mailed me about a news report she heard. She said the new foundation formula sounded too good to be true, so she decided to check the facts before celebrating. This member discovered that the facts about the formula belie the legislature's promise.

Rather than providing the adequate and equitable funding you need for your students, the promises of this bill have a lot of stipulations. The money promised isn't realized until the end of the seven-year phase-in period, and the phase-in doesn't start until the 2006-07 school year. That means it will be eight years before our schools actually get the funding promised in the headlines.

Even more troubling is the fact that the legislature didn't consider a way to pay for this seven-year phase-in. They shrugged off questions of payment with promises of better times to come. Will your bank give you a car loan based on such promises? I can hear the loan officers laughing now.

I think the courts will have the same reaction when the state argues that it has met the need to fund schools adequately and equitably with this funny-money formula. Nothing changes the fact that the formula being phased out is still underfunded by more than $600 million, and next year the shortfall will be even more significant.

More than a year ago, the Education Roundtable study on adequate and equitable school funding concluded that funding our schools would take almost an additional billion dollars. Who knows how far behind we'll be in eight years!

Missouri's public schools are woefully underfunded. We are currently ranked 44th in average teacher salary, and it looks as if we are in a race for last place. The new formula does nothing to improve schools. The provisions of the bill that can be diverted to capital improvements do so by taking funding away from providing quality teachers and up-to-date materials and meeting other needs. The robbing of Peter to pay Paul will directly affect you and your students.

School districts across Missouri will continue to tighten their belts without adequate funding from the state, or they will be forced to seek local tax increases to maintain quality schools. Legislators said they could meet Missouri's needs without increasing taxes, but all they accomplished was passing the buck to the local level.

Public education is a fundamental right under the constitution, and our kids can't wait eight years for the state to provide the funding needed now to improve our schools. Tell the story to your family, friends and neighbors. Tell them to contact the governor and their legislators. Our students deserve more than a funny-money formula to meet their needs.

Greg Jung is president of the Missouri National Education Association. Jung wrote this commentary for Something Better, the MNEA's magazine.