Dr. Marc Gaswirth, a retired public school administrator, has written extensively for nearly 50 years about public sector bargaining  and school human resources.  

Here is an interesting and as yet unexplored question: What is Commissioner of Education Lily Laux’s role in and likely impact on future changes to the school aid formula? 

For now, Governor Sherrill has handed off this vexing problem to Laux, a recent arrival from Texas who, in addition to managing an enormous bureaucracy, is probably still grappling with the intricacies and complexities of a state funding program that has befuddled state and local school district leaders and the courts for decades.

The funding blueprint itself has had a long, convoluted, and controversial  history ever since the mid-1970s when, following a state Supreme Court order that temporarily closed the state’s public schools, the legislature enacted a state income tax intended to provide a predictable and steady revenue stream to support the state’s public schools. 

Throughout its various iterations, the formula has determined how billions of dollars of aid annually are distributed among the state’s nearly 600 school districts. Fifty years later, the issue has again regained some resonance, though it has rarely been dormant as each state budget cycle brings out claims of its alleged inadequacies, flaws and unfairness. 

Advocating for both increased and fairer funding are those educators and school district officials who seek more resources to offset the rising costs of school construction, programs, and services. They are also looking for additional resources to pay higher employee salaries, offer better benefits, and hire more staff. Easing the burden of increased property taxes or finding greater operational efficiencies for many of them would not be among their major priorities.

This is something the Commissioner might want school officials to examine more closely but probably won’t. For political reasons, she is almost certain to avoid talking about the expense and operational inefficiencies of nearly 600 independent school districts that, besides their numbers alone, are heavily beset by state mandates, high personnel costs, and property taxpayer resentments. 

Her concern might be that even if the governor authorized her to speak on these topics, doing so could diminish her standing as the state’s education leader as well as unfairly label her as a political operative, a title she would desperately want to avoid.

She will probably be shielded from the actual funding formula debate and instead provide technical assistance and professional advice as requested.  

The overwhelmingly majority Democrats in the State Legislature, especially the party leadership and the governor, will make the policy decisions, leaving the minority Republicans sidelined and largely ignored.

As is apt with politicians in power, equity issues and substantive improvements in the formula will be subordinate to the needs of their constituent school districts as to which ones will be winners or losers under a revised state aid plan. The Commissioner will have little to say to sway legislators from acting contrary to their political instincts

But the final say whether the revised formula will stand rests with the courts. And, if history is prologue, it will take years of litigation, long after this Education Commissioner departs, for the state Supreme Court to eventually rule on whether it meets the constitutional obligation of providing public school students with a “thorough and efficient education.”  

One can easily posit that short of a significant and serious reassessment and realignment of existing policies and practices, more will be said than ever achieved in any funding reform effort.

These include continued strict adherence to the tradition of local control, legislative interference that places additional financial costs on local school districts, the absence of controls on collective bargaining outcomes, and the incessant pressure of powerful special interest groups.

While the commissioner will probably not endorse this idea publicly, I will. As long as the Legislature will be considering changes to the school aid formula, how about developing and seriously considering different funding models showing a serious reduction in the state’s nearly 600 local school districts? 

These just might show cost savings resulting in greater operational efficiencies and greater learning opportunities by having fewer school districts competing with each other for limited resources and school personnel in hard-to-fill positions during a sustained period of declining student enrollment. Just a thought!