[ OUR OPINION ]
State’s single district
assures equal educationHAWAII can take a certain pride in an asterisk beside its listing among states evaluated for disparities in expenditures in needy and prosperous school districts. Hawaii has no such disparity, of course, because its schools are administered by a unique statewide district.
THE ISSUE Hawaii's statewide school district makes it the only state that distributes education revenues evenly.
That doesn't necessarily mean that education expenditures in Hawaii are adequate or that the money is spent wisely. The equal distribution of school funds that favorably distinguishes Hawaii from all other states is not a laurel on which its school system can rest.
A report by the Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy group for schools in poor urban districts, shows that school districts with the neediest students receive far less state and local tax money. While districts spent an average of $6,812 per student in the nation's lowest-poverty districts in the 1999-2000 school year, expenditures averaged $5,846 in the highest-poverty districts -- a difference of $966. Disparities rose to as much as $2,142 in New York and $2,060 in Illinois.
Hawaii Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto reported recently that Hawaii spent $6,391 per student in the 2000-01 school year, compared with a national average of $7,079. (Unlike the Education Trust analysis, those figures include federal funds.) She says Hawaii ranks 32nd among states in such expenditures per pupil.
Hamamoto says a University of Hawaii study supports her view that "centralized state funding results in a low priority" for education expenditures. According to that study, Hawaii spent a lower percentage of state and local government revenues on public education than any other state.
How important is all of this? The Education Trust report does not imply that the amount of expenditures will determine the quality of education. While urging school districts to "change the inequitable distribution of resources," the report acknowledges that "how the dollars are spent is just as important as how many dollars there are."
Chester E. Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, doesn't think the amount spent is even the most important factor.
"There are a lot of high-spending poor communities like Newark, which is spending upward of $10,000 per child, and it's overall a disastrous public school system," Finn says. "Just adding money to a school system doesn't cause test scores to rise. It truly does depend on how that money is spent."
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