Poor schools neglected in funding plan

Hardly anyone wins in the 2019-21 budget and school funding formula approved by the Indiana House, but some schools lose more than others. And high-poverty school districts continue to fall behind.

Legislators have boasted that the budget increases K-12 funding by over 2 percent each of the next two years. But allowing for inflation and increasing enrollment, that’s effectively no increase at all.

As Northwest Allen County Superintendent Chris Himsel tells the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, the key figure is funding per student. Statewide, that will increase by just 1.5 percent in fiscal 2020 and 1.7 percent in fiscal 2021, according to school funding calculations released by House Republications.

And the increase won’t be distributed equally. That’s because funding for the “complexity” category, which funnels additional support to neediest students, is being cut by over $100 million.

Voucher program gets outsized share of K-12 funding increase

Students who receive tuition vouchers to attend private religious schools will get nearly 10 percent of the K-12 education funding increase that Indiana lawmakers included in the 2017-19 state budget.

That’s an outsized share given that voucher students make up only about 3.5 percent of the students who receive funding from the state.

Per-pupil funding is less for voucher students than for public school students – voucher students get either 90 percent or 50 percent of the money that would otherwise go to the public schools where they live, depending on family income. But total funding for vouchers will increase because the number of voucher students is expected to continue to grow while public school enrollment is flat.

Projections in school funding data provided by the House Republican caucus show the number of voucher students increasing by over 10 percent in the next two years.

Indiana’s voucher program started small in 2011 but has grown rapidly as new pathways were added. It is now possible for nearly any child from a low-to-middle-income family to qualify by first being awarded a tuition scholarship from a state-approved scholarship granting organization.

The state is spending $146 million on vouchers this school year. The cost is projected to increase to $156.6 million next year and $167.4 million the following year.