The Annenberg Institute, an education research organization at Brown, contributed to a Rhode Island Foundation report on establishing more equitable funding in R.I. public schools. The report, which recommended changes to improve the state’s education funding system, was presented at a Boston Globe panel last week in Providence.
The partnership between the Annenberg Institute and the R.I. Foundation was initiated by the foundation, and sought to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders and leaders in R.I. education systems. The role of the institute was to “facilitate the process” of research and conversations with teacher unions, early childhood organizations and more, according to Brenda Santos, the director of R.I. research partnerships and networks at the Annenberg Institute.
Currently, Rhode Island’s funding formula for public schools relies on “determining what it costs to educate a child in the state of Rhode Island,” Santos told The Herald. The formula must also “determine how much of that is paid by the state and how much of it is paid by the local municipality,” she said.
After hosting conversations with students about their needs, the commission’s report came to the conclusion that current funding did not cover all of the costs necessary to attend school.
The researchers found that it was unreasonable for the “core instructional amount,” which includes teachers and teaching materials, to be the basis of the funding formula, Santos explained. Multiple factors that are “critical for educating students,” such as transportation and healthcare costs, were found to be missing from the equation, according to the report.
The report also found that the current funding system does not adequately account for students who may have different instructional needs. For example, the formula does not “acknowledge the fact that it might cost more to educate a student that has recently arrived in the United States,” Bila Djamaoeddin ’22, a research project manager at the Annenberg Institute, told the Herald.
“We had a lot of students … who were themselves multilingual learners,” Djamaoeddin added. These students had experiences receiving “really inadequate services for their language needs.”
The researchers developed four recommendations to amend public school funding: alter the formula to fulfill all educational costs, personalize costs to fit students needs, require local municipalities to contribute as much as they can and increase accountability on spending and outcomes.
When it comes to accounting for the full cost of education, the commission recommends shifts in “the financial balance of how legacy teacher pension costs are paid,” Kirk Murrell, project director with the R.I. Education Research Initiatives team at the Annenberg Institute, told The Herald.
These recommendations were inspired by previous R.I. policy and other states’ education budget policies, including from California and Massachusetts, according to Murrell.
As uncertainties around federal funding mount and nationwide conversations about a decrease in student enrollment, this report covers “a very timely topic,” Djamaoeddin said.
“I hope the general public has a real conversation about why the current funding system isn’t working,” Djamaoeddin said. “I hope that Rhode Island can adopt a system that ensures more equity or fairness in how students are funded.”
Elizabeth Rosenbaum is a senior staff writer covering science and research.
