As the race for governor in Ohio heats up, so too has the interest in candidate Ken Blackwell's "65 Cent Solution," which would require every Ohio school district to spend at least 65 cents of each education dollar on "classroom instruction." The proposal clearly has political appeal. In Ohio, current classroom spending is at 57.4 percent. Blackwell claims on his website that the 65 cent solution would add $1.2 billion to the state's classroom budgets.
The "65 percent solution" is the brainchild of Patrick Byrne, founder and president of Overstock.com and the National Advisory chairman of First Class Education, a grassroots organization whose mission is to push state legislatures to require every school district in America to spend at least 65 cents of every education dollar on classroom instruction. The effort is making real progress. Georgia, Kansas, and Louisiana have recently adopted 65 percent proposals, Texas Governor Rick Perry enacted the same proposal by executive order, and at least seven other states are working toward this goal.
The 65 percent solution goes over well with politicians, but is it good policy? According to a recent report by Standard & Poor's, there is no relationship between spending 65 percent or more on instruction and higher student achievement. In fact, according to Standard & Poor's, "some of the highest performing districts spend less than 65 percent, and some of the lowest-performing districts spend more than 65 percent." As people in private business know, organizations need flexibility in how they allocate money. In short, "mandating a specific spending allocation is not likely to provide a 'silver bullet' solution to raising student achievement," says Standard & Poor's.
There are no less than two reasons why. First, a lack of uniform accounting standards in public education makes determining what spending qualifies as "classroom instruction" a capricious and arbitrary exercise. This fact all but guarantees that district officials will find creative ways to define "classroom instruction." Second, as Standard and Poor's notes, "how the money is spent in the classroom is as important as what percentage is being spent on instruction." On this subject, Eric Hanushek, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, observes, "The one thing we know pretty clearly from research is that teacher quality is very, very important, and nothing in the '65 percent solution' would say anything about teacher quality." In fact, as Frederick M. Hess at the American Enterprise Institute notes, "the easiest way to fulfill the mandate is to give teachers an across-the-board raise or go on a teacher hiring binge. Experience offers little reason to believe that such expenditures are an efficient use of funds."
Candidate Blackwell is to be commended for seeking innovative policies to improve education in Ohio, but his 65 cent solution may prove to be a blunt instrument poorly suited for improving how education is delivered in the Buckeye State.
http://www.kenblackwell.com/OnTheIssues/Default.aspx?Section=21
