Paying for learning, not system

Patrick McIlheran:

It's this: The money a school district gets depends on enrollment. In Milwaukee, the one place private-school choice is now offered, the Milwaukee Public Schools' per-pupil funding is not hurt at all when kids go somewhere else (per-pupil, it increases annually). But when about 20,000 pupils go elsewhere, MPS has less money overall, since it's teaching fewer children.

Every school district statewide is liable to this already: Wisconsin parents can enroll children in any other public school district. More than 28,000 kids do this switch annually. For every child who moves, one district loses about $6,800 and another gains it. Since some places are big losers and others big gainers, this affects districts' budgets.

For instance, Milwaukee lost about $27 million in the latest year; other big losers were Racine, Green Bay and Madison. It made no difference to taxpayers overall, but the system moved money away from districts that parents shunned and toward ones they preferred.

The snag is transportation. Parents must take kids to their preferred district. This is tough for the poor, especially in places like Racine, where the local district includes all of suburbia as far as the edge of Oak Creek. It's perverse when there are private alternatives in poor neighborhoods.

When Grigsby and others make their complaint, it isn't to say that letting parents choose other schools will hurt weak districts' budgets, else they'd be wailing about public school choice, which does just that. The complaint is that the government-run school system overall will have less money as children and their aid leave.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 4, 2011 1:02 AM
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