Legislators, not judges, should decide school funding

The Wyoming Supreme Court made the right decision earlier this month to pause education mandates from Laramie District Judge Peter Froelicher that seemed more like royal decrees. Legislators can now wait until the appeal to his February 26 order is decided in the Wyoming Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case on November 12.

Some of the requirements included higher teacher pay, a new computer for every student, a rethinking of the cost of education, school resource officers, elementary school mental health counselors, and more money for school lunches.

His decision makes one wonder what the point of legislators is when a judge is so knowledgeable about policy that he can do the job for them. And this is before consideration of the facts of the case, which clearly establish how Wyoming more than adequately funds education and is one of the most generous in the nation.

As the state argued in its appeal, “The suggestion that Wyoming is somehow shortchanging or harming students through inadequate funding is a premise detached from reality.”

Federal statistics show that Wyoming spends more on K-12 education than regional neighbors Idaho, Montana, and Washington, and ranks 11th among the 50 states. The Wyoming Education Association didn’t take this context into its argument, however.

It instead has argued that vague criteria like the need for “appropriate funding” and “competitive salaries”— without defining the terms—demand sweeping changes and has not explained how the money would improve student outcomes.

As the state also noted, “Appellees did not retain a single outside expert to support their claims, and offered virtually no evidence of measurable harm or system-wide impacts from alleged underfunding. Their case consisted almost entirely of their own employees’ personal perspectives on recruiting challenges, tightening budgets, things they thought would be helpful to students, and policy preferences for increased school funding.”

Feelings, however, shouldn’t commandeer facts. More money doesn’t guarantee student outcomes, as a forthcoming study from Mountain States Policy Center shows about the region and national statistics have shown for decades.

A cursory look at the region shows that Wyoming outperforms Idaho, Montana and Washington in 4th grade reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. But by 8th grade, students have fallen behind all of their mountain state peers in reading and drop to second place in math.

Nationally, NAEP scores have hit some of their lowest in decades despite ever-increasing spending. In fact, the U.S. spends more than every other OECD country in total dollars and as a percentage of GDP – with mixed results.

The Wyoming Constitution secures “the right of citizens to opportunities for education.” And through a series of court cases since 1980, the state has refined its funding criteria to meet constitutional approval.

Legislators deserve the chance to hash out within already well-established guidelines, what meets student and school system needs without one judge usurping its legislative authority. As the state wrote in its conclusion, the courts are not justified in “substituting their judgment for that of the legislature in pursuit of whatever districts or advocates may rationalize as beneficial for students.”

The Wyoming Supreme Court should reverse Judge Froelicher’s decision and reaffirm objective standards rather than personal feelings as the path to evaluating appropriate K-12 school funding.

In addition, all financial decisions surrounding education spending should be based on what improves outcomes for students. As evidence shows both regionally and nationally, spending more money doesn’t guarantee higher academic achievement.