Iowa school funding levels face a long road to average

Iowa is no longer a leader in the nation for funding K-12 education. In fact, Iowa now funds K-12 education less than the national average by $1,612 per student. For the Iowa City Community School District this translates to over $21 million.

Imagine what would be possible with average funding, or $21 million in additional funding. We could hire approximately 250 teachers, adding about 10 per school. Imagine the impact on classroom sizes. Imagine the support that could be offered to improve student achievement, to support special education, to support at-risk students, to support mental health services and career development. It makes me think of a world-class education that competes with anyone, anywhere in the world. OK, it's time to get back to reality.

This situation is unfortunate for our students, but it's also unfortunate for our community and our state. For every dollar we invest in education, especially early education, we save $3-$8 in future cost to our communities. Investing in education delivers lower dropout rates, lower crime rates, and fewer demands on social services. Investing in education also delivers higher graduation rates, increased employment and earning potential and an increased chance of living the American dream.

If you are still not convinced that Iowa underfunds K-12 education, let's review a few more facts. When you look at Iowa's support for at-risk students (at-risk funding, dropout prevention, targeted funding for high risk schools) it represents about 9.8 percent in supplemental funding. The national average is 29 percent and most states are at least in the 20 to 25 percent range. Iowa's support for English Language Learners is 0.22 vs. the national average of 0.39 in supplemental weighted funding. Special education fiscal deficits in Iowa are at all-time highs. There is a chronic issue here with underfunding K-12 education.

While most funding levels are set at the state level, we do have some local opportunities to invest in K-12 education. We can recover spending authority if we run deficits on special education and ELL support. This means we can fund the deficit via property taxes and the state will increase our spending authority which allows us to spend the money. Thank you for your local support of special education and ELL.

We also have local control for funding streams which primarily help with capital or school improvements and specialized programming like family resource centers. These funding streams have been critical to improve learning environments and make our school district more efficient.

With average funding our great staff would be greatly enabled to deliver a globally competitive education. However, given funding trends over the past 10 to 15 years, this is no easy task.

We will need annual increases that exceed the national average over the next 15 years to even hope to get back to average. Every long journey starts with one step, and we need to start now. You can help by contacting the governor and state legislators.

' Chris Lynch is a member of the Iowa City Community School Board. This column represents his personal opinions and not necessarily those of the board. Comments: chris.lynch@iowacityschools.org