School funding formula a monumental challenge

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/05/2024 (506 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In what might seem like a strange way to comment on education funding, I mean to draw our attention to the challenges facing the Manitoba government in the development of an education-funding formula.

I remind people of the value and purposes of public schools and why we should fund them adequately, revisit first principles for funding education, and consider current opportunities.

Public services, like education and health, have not fared well in the current political myth of hardship and scarcity, something which simply is not true for most of the population while very real for those in lower income brackets. Simultaneously, neoliberal fiscal policies have framed education as more a private good than a public benefit and taxes as an unreasonable and unwarranted attack on private wealth.

Additionally, some governments have encouraged schools to contract specific programs and services (P3 Buildings) with private companies, further diverting public money into private hands for profit.

Somewhat ironically in this context, the public has consistently expressed its support for public schools, even in the provinces most enamoured by private schooling, homeschooling, and schools of choice.

Equally ironically, the public has overwhelmingly, but not surprisingly, indicated its willingness to pay higher taxes to support public education. Polls continue to confirm that people generally love their children and their schools, even as many are unaware how to make the connection between flourishing schools, thriving communities and prosperous democracies.

Partly, this is due to the fact that education for democracy is a “wait and see” proposition like parenting, one based not only in love but also in hope and faith as we hope and believe that our educational efforts will bear future fruit in terms of good people, communities, and societies in the longer term. What is immediate is that the school-haters and anti-taxers are more susceptible to misinformation and conspiracies, and less likely to support those institutions that undergird our democracies – our elected governments, our impartial courts, our social safety nets and protections, our human rights … and our institutes of learning.

Funding the kind of educational enterprise which builds, supports and maintains the public realm has the task of not only being democratic, meaning understood and supported, but also the challenges of trying to ensure that everyone is considered inclusively and treated equitably. Furthermore, the goal is to have a system which is not cumbersome to administer and responds directly to its purposes.

In educational terms it means to continue to build on the inclusive, individualized practices that have been developed over the last three decades. Financially, it means that children from lower-income families and low socio-economic neighbourhoods generally require greater resources to even the playing field.

While it is difficult to determine the extent of those required resources, we now have Canadian census data which identifies those communities of need, information which allows school boards and government to justify treating them proportionally, and therefore contributing to educational equity and making interpretations of any formulas easier to understand.

In the same vein, property tax data together with the census data can be used to ascertain those most adversely affected by property taxes, allowing for differential treatment in the area of property taxes. For example, people in certain income brackets holding property market-valued under some determined maximum, say $250,000, could be exempt from paying any property taxes for education. And, as today, provincial property taxation should be used to equalize resources between school divisions while still allowing municipal taxes to be employed in response to local needs.

Any government might consider these measures to be a starting point in achieving equity and inclusion, the two hallmarks of democracy. As our schools have become more diverse, but friendlier and more supportive places, so can the actions of governments. What we also know is that availability and accessibility to good schools should not require sacrificing our children, meaning that children and their families should not have to compete for this public good and democratic right. And we know that finances must be relatively stable and predictable for longer-term planning.

To that end, a single formula for the province cannot be expected to be reasonably responsive to the great varieties and disparities which exist in Manitoba. At least three, perhaps more formulas should be developed. The needs of the Northern, rural, and urban Manitoba are very different and, even in all three of those areas, there are significant differences in need and ability to pay.

The challenge is monumental, but a funding formula should represent the best ideals of a democratic society – that everyone matters, is included, and can make claims to a fair share of society’s possibilities and opportunities. Those values are exactly what our public schools try to pass on to our children, an attitude of human solidarity based on an empathy and responsibility for all others.

Public schools are not perfect, but our schools are pretty good, and they do represent the best of what we have to offer our children to prepare them to live as citizens contributing to a better, democratic world. Looking after children we love now gives us hope that the faith we place in them by way of their schools will be worth every penny we, as a society, are prepared to spend on them. There are no better ways to invest our money than on our young!

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba.