School funding should be distributed fairly, if not efficiently

Numbers.

Are you still reading?

We’ll have to hope that you are despite the subject matter being one that sends many into a comatose state.

Though some believe there little fun to be had with numbers, this week, with calculators in hand, we crunched and re-crunched the latest provincial government funding figures to keep chalk on chalk boards, classrooms lit and teachers teaching.

There’s plenty to digest in the story, but we believe it makes for a good chew.
There’s wowing morsels. Like the fact that more than $223 million will be spent educating the children attending the four school boards that serve this area and beyond.

That’s a staggering amount.

But also staggering is the inequity with which it is distributed.

The Near North District School Board (NNDSB) will have to educate the children entrusted to its care with about $119 million. That may seem like a lot of money, but broken down for each of the 10,626 students expected to attend its schools next year it’s only $11,191 per student.

We say only because in comparison the other local school boards are doing much better.

The English Catholic board will receive $36.5 million for its operations, or $12,045 for each of its 3,031 students.

The French Catholic board will do even better bringing in $42.3 million for the 2,917 students in its care. That’s $14,505 for each of them.

But leading the way on the provincial money stampede is the French public board that has 1,530 students – one-seventh of the number enrolled with the NNDSB. Their operating revenues for the 2008/09 school year is projected to be $25.8 million, or $16,851 per student – about one-fifth of what the NNDSB has to play with. Think about it – one-seventh the students, one-fifth the money.

These, however, are not the figures from the provincial funding tables that raised our eyebrows the highest.

Off in the corner is a small box outlining in the briefest of formats is what we believe to be the most telling numbers about how the current provincial funding formula is affecting our classrooms, the viability of our schools and thus our communities.

In that small box are the capacity and enrolment figures for each of our local school boards. The NNDSB’s 36 elementary schools, this current school year, are at 64.5 per cent capacity. Its seven secondary schools are at 69.8 per cent capacity.

The English Catholic board is at 64.3 per cent capacity at its 13 elementary schools and 78.8 per cent capacity at its lone high school.

The French Catholic board is at 49 per cent capacity at its 14 elementary schools and 54.3 per cent at its three secondary schools.

The French public board is at 63.5 per cent capacity at its eight elementary schools and 41.9 per cent at its six high schools. That particular number is worth a little more scrutiny. The French public school board is operating six high schools teaching a total of 387 kids – total.

What all of these enrolment and capacity numbers illustrate is that the disparity in funding levels is reaping.

With the exception of the English Catholic board’s high school the NNDSB has higher capacity at its schools than the other boards in every category.

Yet, it seems to be the only board talking about closing schools to balance its books.

Considering the amount of money flowing into school board vaults overall, this is a ridiculous situation.

Either money is being wasted and/or resources are not being distributed efficiently.

If the amount the NNDSB receives per student was applied to the other local boards, overall spending on education in this part of the province would drop from $223.5 million to $202.6 million – a savings of about $21 million.

This is not the remedy we suggest though.

Instead, if the $223 million were to be divided up equally amongst all boards and their students the picture would be much different. Doing that would raise the per pupil funding in the NNDSB and the English Catholic board (and lower the two French boards’ funding) to $12,346 per student.

We know, however, that this scenario might not be realistic.

Small school boards have fixed costs that can be the same as big boards and equal per pupil funding would create undue hardship that inevitably would land on the backs of the students there.

So better we say to get rid of the French boards altogether.

This past provincial election Ontarians rejected in the strongest terms possible the idea of creating more school boards by electing Dalton McGuinty and his party as defenders of the public school system. He should use that mandate to get rid of the waste created by duplicate school boards, with duplicate administration and half-empty schools.

Not only would it create equity in the education system, it would allow school board trustees to concentrate on their real responsibility – how best to serve the communities that lie in their jurisdiction and not how best to balance the books.