She does, however, discuss one requirement that officials must meet in exchange for the record amount of funding: Districts must engage in “meaningful consultation” with their communities as they develop school spending plans bolstered by millions of dollars.

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This process, Roza argues, could have significant implications for school budgeting as districts are motivated to make decisions alongside their communities, rather than under the pressure of federal requirements.

Beyond relief funding, here are three other key school updates this week from states, district officials and education advocates:

1 Tennessee Resumes Push to Roll Out Virtual Standardized Testing

After significant pre-pandemic challenges, Tennessee officials are restarting efforts to move the administration of state standardized assessments online, .

Education spokesperson Brian Blackley said the gradual transition makes sense to start now, as districts purchased millions of dollars of technology improvements to deliver remote learning and the pandemic increased the importance of actionable, comprehensive student progress data. Officials say that online testing systems will slowly be adopted for lower grades as the state works out any challenges or necessary improvements.

2 How Did Remote Learning, and a Shift to Reading on Screens, Affect Comprehension?

The pandemic changed students’ reading habits, , though not always in clearly defined ways.

The various research studies found that, during the pandemic, students read more on average, though more reading is taking place online or on screens than ever before. While some are cautioning that students tend to retain less when reading on screen than in print, others point to the role of parent and teacher engagement and supports that often accompany print reading and should be continued when students move to a screen.

Adriana Bus, professor of language and literacy at Leiden University in Amsterdam, said her research supports digital devices as long as engagement is prioritized and built in. “Our study also shows that books with digital enhancements can benefit and result in better comprehension than paper books if the enhancements support comprehension,” writes Bus.

3 The Importance of Testing in Revealing Widening Post-Pandemic Learning Gaps

Newly released national testing data from assessment provider NWEA further .

The report follows the release of sobering test scores in and . “It’s not that the pattern is necessarily out of what I would have expected, it’s just — oh my gosh, we’re going to have to really work hard to provide resources to these students to help them catch up,” said Megan Kuhfeld, a researcher with NWEA.

https://twitter.com/PwaysToCollege/status/1421209008619331596?s=20

The data come as two researchers released a warning of softening public support for assessment systems during the pandemic. The brief is raising concerns among advocates, public officials, and some educators, who worry that decreases in support for testing could hinder efforts to address learning loss head on, target waves of resources to schools and students with the most need, and identify practices or models that worked during the disruption of COVID-19.

The results of the referendum that would bring $1 billion over 30 years to the Racine Unified School District — and allow the district to revamp buildings dating back to the Civil War —  came down to just five votes.

On April 7, 2020, voters approved the referendum by this impossibly thin margin. Little more than two weeks later, observers gathered in Festival Hall and held their collective breath as they watched the recount of 33,315 ballots.

Racine Unified School Board president Brian O’Connell said it felt like watching the final seconds of a championship. After six rounds of ballot-counting, the results were final: The referendum had passed.

It was a hard-fought campaign for the referendum, O’Connell recalled, one that met staunch opposition , the same group that would later challenge the five-vote victory, appealing all the way to the state Supreme Court.

School officials are awaiting a final verdict from the high court before they break ground on the full slate of projects the referendum money would fund.

Despite its hefty $1 billion price tag, — although any increase in assessed value will raise individual tax bills.

For now, referendum advocates in Racine applaud increased tax dollars that will allow the district to “right-size” by closing under-enrolled schools, refurbishing and expanding others, and adding new technology, including a science, technology, engineering, arts and math school.

O’Connell said there was no other way to raise the money.

“I think that’s why you see so many school districts, big and small, urban and rural, going to referendum,” he said. “If you find a school district that’s been able to raise money without going to referendum, please let me know.”

Referendum questions common

Increasingly, school districts in Wisconsin are forced to ask voters for approval to pay for everything from maintenance of old school buildings and construction of new schools to employee pay.

Since 2016, more than seven out of every 10 of Wisconsin’s 421 school districts have gone to referendum, with , said Ari Brown, a researcher with the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

The frequency with which districts in Wisconsin must exceed state-imposed revenue limits shows the nearly 30-year-old state funding formula is failing to keep up with present-day needs, school officials say.

Prior to 1993, local school districts generally had the authority to raise as much as they deemed necessary and have the local taxpayers to cover it, with the state covering a certain percentage, Brown said. But that year, the Wisconsin Legislature imposed revenue limits in response to concerns by lawmakers and members of the public about rapidly rising tax bills to fund schools.

The limits are that takes into account the assessed property in the district, the size of enrollment and past revenue, Brown said. State aid can decrease as property values increase or if student enrollment decreases.

Places like Gibraltar in Door County rely more heavily on property taxes to pay for schools, because the district is considered “property rich,” with 83.8 percent of its operating budget in 2020 coming from property taxes. Districts like Beloit rely more on state aid, because property taxes cover a smaller percentage, 2.5% of its operating budget in 2020.

And proposals by former state superintendent and current Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to — and vastly increase state funding to education — have been rebuffed by the GOP-run Legislature.

Money dries up as enrollment drops

Brown said while the per pupil state aid has increased over time, the rate has not kept up with inflation. From the 2009-10 school year to 2018-19,, he said.

And if a district’s enrollment decreases, the effect on its bottom line can be magnified, said Dale Knapp, director of Forward Analytics, the research arm for the Wisconsin Counties Association.

“The challenges for school districts is they have a lot of what I would call semi-fixed costs, for example, teachers,” he said. “Suppose your average class size is 25, and you’re a medium-sized district, but you lose 50 students in a year. It’s going to be across multiple grades, so you can’t necessarily in that year lay off two teachers because you have 50 fewer students. ….So your costs don’t decline linearly with enrollment.”

Dan Rossmiller, director of government relations for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said this dynamic has created funding problems for many districts — one that is difficult to explain to taxpayers who may oppose increasing taxes to pay for schools where enrollments are declining.

“What’s happened since about the early 2000s is that enrollment has been decreasing,” Rossmiller said. “That’s what’s pinching school district budgets. As enrollment goes down, the state-imposed revenue limit reduces the revenue available to the district. The real problem in explaining this to the public is that every district has a unique situation and a unique explanation.”

A Republican bill that would have made enrollment declines less financially damaging .

School officials: Update funding system 

The Green Bay Area Public School District, the fourth largest district in the state, is no stranger to referendums — going to voters eight times since 1993.

, which included $68.25 million for a districtwide building and facilities improvement plan and an operational referendum authorizing the district to exceed the revenue cap by $16.5 million per year for 10 years.

“So the revenue cap is what needs to change — pure and simple,” said Pete Ross, the Green Bay district’s chief operations officer. “It has not increased with inflation in any of the years since it’s been put in place.”

Ross said the cap has locked Green Bay into a level of spending that no longer supports the district’s needs. In 2017, Green Bay’s per pupil spending was $9,691 — well below the state average of $10,444, district spokeswoman Lori Blakeslee said.

“In 1993, we were fixed as a low-spending district and could not move out of that fixed spot we were in,” Ross said. “So going into the 1993 school year, if you were a poor district, a low-spending district, you were destined to be that forever.”

Savion Castro, Madison school board vice president, said even high property value districts like Madison do not fare well under the revenue caps because of the significant needs of some of their students. totaling $350 million — $317 million for capital projects and $33 million in operating funds that will phase in over four years.

“We have very, very, very high levels of inequity in our school system. West High School has the highest level of income inequality in the whole state,” Castro said. “Big picture, I think we need to come up with a formula that is reflective of the actual needs of students and the changing demographics that we are seeing in our schools.”

But former Republican state Sen. Luther Olsen, who chaired the Senate Education Committee until 2020, said the nearly 30-year-old funding formula has done the job, curbing what lawmakers and many members of the public felt was unfettered spending by school officials.

“What was happening is that schools were writing checks and the state was having to sign its name on the bottom, and when it said it would fund whatever a school spent, there was no concern,” he said.

Proposals for change stall

Olsen and state Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, served as co-chairs of the bipartisan . Both are long-time former school board members in northeastern Wisconsin.

In 2019, the commission put forth — including restoring the state’s commitment of two-thirds funding of school costs, adjusting per-pupil funding with inflation, factoring in the needs of low-income pupils and updating revenue limit formulas. (A complete list of recommendations can be found at )

The Legislature has taken no action on those proposals, but, said Kitchens, “I would hope that we would still have a chance to get those done this time or in the future.”

Another former school board member, state Rep. Kristina Shelton, D-Green Bay, said Wisconsin needs a school funding formula that is “transparent, equitable and sustainable.”

“Unfortunately,” she said, “what we found is our formula is none of those things, and it is harming Wisconsin kids, families and teachers.”

District relies on history of public support

Howard-Suamico Superintendent Damian LaCroix keeps a powerful reminder of the past, which he hopes is a sign of the future of public education. Nestled on his office bookshelves are the original minutes from a community meeting held in the Town of Pittsfield on Nov. 15, 1856.

“The only thing on the agenda was this group recognizing the need if the community was going to prosper and thrive, they needed to invest in their schools,” LaCroix said.

On that day, those 17 community members agreed on a $200 tax to build a new school house and a $50 tax to pay for a teacher.

Fast forward 165 years, and school finance in 2021 is infinitely more complex — and the needs of students and the community have grown to levels unfathomable in the 1800s.

Because Howard-Suamico was a low-spending district back in 1992, it has held nine referendum questions to boost spending since 2005,

Most recently, on April 6, district voters approved $98 million to renovate learning spaces and operational funding to decrease class sizes, better compensate teachers and maintain facilities.

“Over 160 years ago, leaders in this community recognized education is not an expense, it’s an investment,” LaCroix said. “We have a duty, a moral and ethical obligation, to educate every child and help them maximize their potential.”

Press Times Editor Ben Rodgers and Wisconsin Watch’s Mario Koran and Dee J. Hall contributed to this story. It was produced by the NEW News Lab, a collaboration of newsrooms focusing on issues important to northeastern Wisconsin. 

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.