The B.S. Factor Could Be Ending. Let’s Party Like It’s 1989!
On November 1, Governor Polis delivered a FY2024 budget that included a school funding milestone: the end of the “Budget Stabilization Factor.” It is indeed historic. For the first time in 13 years, the state is keeping a promise made by the voters in 2000.
But while historic and positive, this feat is receiving undue celebration. Headlines herald “fully funding“ K-12 education and “paying off the K-12 debt.”
Deserving of kudos? Absolutely. “Fully funding K-12”? Absolutely not.
Here’s why it is far too early to declare victory.
- We’ve finally climbed up to the floor. When voters passed Amendment 23 in 2000, they created a mechanism to reverse the cuts to schools that occurred in the 1990s. School funding was supposed to increase by the rate of “inflation + 1%” in the first ten years. Importantly, Amendment 23 set the floor – not a ceiling. Faced with the Great Recession, the legislature created the B.S. Factor, to artificially drop the floor. Now that we’ve eliminated the B.S. Factor, we’ve finally climbed back to the minimum required by Amendment 23.
- With no B.S. Factor, we will finally be funding schools at 1989 inflation-adjusted levels. And in 1989, there were no state standards and tests, no COVID-induced learning loss, and no internet or computers in the classroom. Career technical education was “vocational education,” which generally consisted of woodshop and metal shop. Gas cost $1 a gallon and Doogie Howser was a tween.
- How would you describe a “fully funded” public education system? A plentiful pool of quality teachers who are well-paid and able to live where they teach? Individual attention for every student? Up-to-date career technical education and challenging coursework available to all students – regardless of zip code? Does “complying with a formula in the constitution” make the grade?
- Eliminating the B.S. Factor does NOT “pay off the K-12 debt.” The debt that Colorado still owes its students is the $10 billion withheld from schools via the B.S. Factor since 2009. Saying that this budget pays off that debt is like a person cutting up their credit card and then telling VISA they don’t have to pay the balance they racked up.
- The B.S. Factor is disappearing, but so are COVID-relief funds. Districts have made incredible strides with the “ESSER” (COVID-relief) funds they received over the past 3 years. But those dollars disappear next year, leaving gaping holes in student support.
There is so much to celebrate at this moment:
- The (hopefully) permanent demise of a budget-slashing mechanism;
- Significant increases in school funding this year;
- The exceptional work of dedicated educators and student support staff who are teaching and meeting the needs of students during challenging times; and
- The “adequacy study” that legislators have, for the first time, commissioned to document the actual cost of providing a public education system that allows every student to meet standards.
But, as we celebrate, let’s remember that language matters and that Colorado’s students deserve accuracy and candor in adults’ conversations about school funding.