preview

Educational Funding Levels For Public Schools Essay

Decent Essays

The formula budgeting approach is the method most commonly used by states, including Georgia, to determine K-12 educational funding levels for public schools (Green, 2014). This approach utilizes a fixed method to allocate funds and, as maintained by Green (2014), is intended to provide an objective, efficient, and equitable manner to distribute state education funds to local schools districts. However, as observed with Georgia’s own funding formula, this budgeting approach falls short when full funding is not provided. As a result, funding inequities do occur as local sources of revenue vary across the state.
Established by the Georgia legislature in 1985, the Quality Basic Education (QBE) funding formula was designed to equitably provide K-12 educational services for Georgia students (Suggs, 2015). The appropriation of QBE is to provide formula funds to school systems based on full time equivalent (FTE) students in grades K-12 as outlined in O.C.G.A. 20-2-161 (Governor’s Budget Report, 2015). The funding formula is comprised of three broad areas that are combined to fund and equalize funding from state and local revenue sources; the formula is QBE earnings plus any categorical grants plus the equalization. (The Basics of Quality Basic Education (QBE) Funding, n.d). Furthermore, the formula is calculated based on two components: total enrollment and student characteristics. It is based upon FTE student counts across nineteen instructional programs (FY 16 GA QBE

Get Access