Education Spending Wars About to Begin

by Wyoming Liberty Staff

Members of the Wyoming House and Senate Education committee met last week at the close of the legislative session to discuss potential topics to study over the next 10 months. The meeting began with all of the lackluster enthusiasm of insomniacs watching a midnight infomercial. The usual flock of education bureaucrats and lobbyists representing school board members, the teachers union, community colleges, the University of Wyoming and the State Board of Education presented uninspiring testimony on various subjects from the state's alignment with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to studying transportation costs within the districts.

Things livened up considerably, however, when Senate Co-Chair Hank Coe arrived late to the meeting only to inform all present he had just been briefed on the state's bleak financial picture and needed the committee to know one of their main tasks this year would be to study finding ways to "cut education spending."

In an instant battle lines were drawn between state lawmakers' tasked with finding funding for the entirety of state government using disappearing funding and the education lobby's opposition to any spending cuts in education. This committee meeting was where the first salvos in what is sure to be an ugly war were shot. (Keep in mind that the absence of a yearly increase in public education spending is considered a cut by this crowd.)

Public testimony given by the education lobby after Senator Coe's statement was laced with innuendo regarding the supposed threat of "setting back progress" and "losing the quality of our education system" should the ever-increasing funding streams suddenly go dry, which has now happened thanks to the relentless "war on coal."

But is it true that Wyoming has been getting what it has paid for in education?

At the heart of the discussion by those on the committee who would rather raise taxes on the average Wyoming family (yes, this was one of the solutions posited in the meeting) rather than decrease spending is the fallacy that Wyoming's spending has created a world-class education system. You can't "set back" a system you don't really have in the first place. So let's look at the facts.

Although Wyoming has certainly seen a startling rise in education spending over the past 20 years, there is little to show for this spending in terms of educational outcomes for students. Since 1995 Wyoming has seen a statewide decrease of over 10,000 students enrolled in the public education system, yet spending has increased from slightly over $500 million to $1.5 billion. (Note: these figures do not include statewide school construction.) And national test scores clearly show Wyoming's ever-increasing education spending has not amounted to big improvements in student test scores.

For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test scores show Wyoming 4th grade reading scores have gone from 221 in 1994 to 228 in 2015, a rise of 7 points in 2 decades. 8th grading reading scores fared similarly dismal results rising from 262 in 1998 to 269 in 2015, another 7 point rise in under two decades while spending doubled and student enrollment decreased. 

To dig further into student outcome indicators let's take a look at the continuing need by Wyoming high school graduates for college math remediation. These extra college courses our students have to take after receiving a Wyoming high school diploma is based on the ACT remediation markers. We compared these markers to K-12 spending to show once again that increased spending is not creating a significant increase in positive academic outcomes. (For more on student outcomes in Wyoming, see the ACT and Graduation Rate graphs above.)

In 2001 according to a Joint Wyoming Community College and University of Wyoming report to the Joint Education and Appropriation Committees, 28.2% of first time freshman entering the University of Wyoming were in need of remedial math courses. At the same time, K-12 spending was over $600 million dollars. One decade later, in 2011, the same report cites first time freshman eligible for remediation decreased by only 5% to 23.4%. State spending however had increased to around $1.2 billion. Again we see large spending increases across the last two decades while overall markers in educational outcomes for students remain static or with a very slight rise.

So while the special interest groups and committee members like Senator Chris Rothfuss, (D), Laramie and Minority Floor Leader, Representative Mary Throne (D), Cheyenne, tried during the meeting to persuade their fellow committee members that education spending should not be cut because the state has made such incredible gains over the past decade or two, the facts simply don't support that.

Public education has sadly become all about more and more money, resulting in the monetization of our children with little regard or interest for what it really takes to educate the whole child. And to complicate the matter, the Wyoming's Supreme Court rulings which center around "equity" and "maximization" arguments for our schools has created a litigation-rich environment that necessitates continual spending increases under the threat of more legal action by our school districts. Yet what we know about student scores and Wyoming's education spending is that the one is not improving the other.

So, as the state spends the next year grappling with long-term budget woes, let's hope that more time will be spent soberly looking at what Wyoming has gotten for the money it has been spending in the K-12 system instead of engaging in hyperbolic and emotion-driven claims about the state of our current system. What we can be sure of in the months to be come, however, is that a war is coming and none of it will be "for the children."