Understanding Ohio's School Funding Formula (or lack thereof)

"The understanding is it's the state's responsibility to set up a school system with proper funding that will meet the needs of all the kids across the state. We've got 610 school districts, which is a lot even for a state our size, which is 11 million people, and that creates two concerns about the funding formula - one is adequacy and one is equity."<p><strong>Featured guest: </strong></p><ul><li>Howard Fleeter, economist &amp; <a href="http://www.oepiohio.org/">Ohio Education Policy Institute</a> consultant <ul> <li>Dr. Howard B. Fleeter received his BA from Northwestern University and a Ph.D in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.  He was a faculty member in the School of Public Policy and Management at Ohio State University from 1989-1999, where he taught courses in Public Sector Economics, Public Finance, and State and Local Government Finance.  He was a four-time recipient of the School’s “Faculty of the Year” award for excellence in teaching.  Fleeter was also a faculty member in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1999-2001, where he taught courses in the Economics of Education and School Finance.  His research has focused on state and local government finance, education funding and education policy, and applied microeconomics. He joined Richard Levin and William Driscoll as a partner in the research and consulting firm Levin, Driscoll &amp; Fleeter in 2002.   Dr. Fleeter has extensive experience working with policymakers and stakeholders on issues of education and human services finance, tax reform and analysis, state budgeting, economic impact analysis, and other related policy issues. </li> <li>Learn more about Dr. Fleeter's public policy research firm: <a href="https://www.fleeterandassociates.com/">https://www.fleeterandassociates.com/</a> </li> </ul> </li></ul><p><strong>In this episode:</strong></p>"The biggest issue for adequacy in the <em>DeRolph </em>decision was that the numbers that were used in the formula were just kind of pluck