Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Patrick is hinting at a major proposal to change the school funding mechanism, which I applaud in theory. The problem, of course, is that any change that is even close to cost-neutral will hurt some communities, making its passage nearly impossible.

I would love to see a serious reform proposal that comes with a new dedicated revenue stream -- and I think you could argue that the one way to get the state to consider a new tax would be for education.

In fact, I could picture a grand bargain of sorts, with a plan to roll back the income tax to 5.0%, in exchange for shifting a significant portion of Chapter 70 funding into a new metrics-based system using a separate dedicated revenue stream. That new system could put more state control over local school boards (ie, by making funding dependent on certain approaches or actions that the state wants to encourage), in exchange for more funding in total.

Of course, I have no idea whether this is what the Patrick folks are considering. But it begs the big question: what could one propose as a new revenue stream devoted exclusively to local education? Any ideas?

5/1/2007 3:03:54 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [3] |