[ilbegone]

Originally Posted by Jeanfromfillmore

The Robin Hood formula consists primarily of a three tiered structure based on student demographics, starting with base funding, which all students receive, next is supplemental funding for specific demographics and then concentration funding.

Each district receives a per pupil base grant that vary between grades k-3, 4-6, 7-8 and 9-12. A supplemental grant of 35% of the base grant is provided for each student of these three special groups; English learner, economically disadvantaged or foster youth student.

Those students that fall into more than one of the three categories can only be counted once for supplemental funding. Districts with an excess of 50% enrollment of the special group category are then given a concentration grant equal to 35% of the base grant for all student that exceed the 50% threshold.

What this comes out to is $2,800+$980+$980= $4,840 for most students where the poverty level is high (over 50%) and for those areas/districts where the poverty level is low ( in other words the areas with the people paying the taxes) those students get $2,800. You see the big difference!!! It pays to be poor so what incentive is there for the school districts to improve?

I know a number of people from several school districts and this is the picture I put together from them:

English Language learner is a big cash winner for the district - there is a huge amount of money to be raked in by keeping those ready to move on classified as English learner.

I'm not sure about the idea of the Cafeteria being used for featherbedding more employees than necessary. Anymore the cafeteria is a microwave operation to heat food actually prepared and packaged elsewhere - probably by minimum wage people not represented by any union. There's not a large employee surplus at the school in that area.

The schools have been barred from asking the the true need of a family concerning taxpayer provided meals. So, there is a mix of the genuinely low income kids and kids who are dropped off by someone who lied about necessity, sometimes from expensive cars driven by people wearing expensive clothes. On the other hand there is a good proportion of the kids from all income levels who would have nothing to eat at all besides a bag of chips brought from home if it weren't for the school meals.

And there are all sorts of reasons for the low income kids, from druggie parents to broken families and single parent families to illegal foreigners who work for nothing to those who willfully exploit the system, and also the recession which knocked the legs out from under many families.

There are a lot of fingers pointed in all directions as to who is responsible for the low educational achievement. There is "teach to the test", parents who don't care, bad teachers, district policies which don't make sense to anyone, educator bias and social engineering, kids who don't speak English, over crowded classes, the list goes on and on.

It's a mixed bag, but this is my understanding.