The staccato pops of Independence Day fireworks have come and gone for yet another year. But for most of us, they served their patriotic purpose, calling to mind the “shot heard round the world” – the gunfire launching the American Revolution on April 19, 1775 at the battle of Old North Bridge.

Last week, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued its own salvo, this time in the war over education funding. Will future generations deem it “the shot heard round the country?” Only time will tell, but many education leaders hope it will revolutionize how our government funds public education.
Called the Fund the Child 100% Solution, this proposal would up-end our traditional (and antiquated) system of education funding.

Rather than directing money toward school systems, this formula (also known as Weighted Student Funding, or WSF) would instead attach money to the child, meaning public dollars would follow a student to his/her chosen public school. Created in Edmonton, Alberta in the 1970s, WSF has been slow to catch on in the U.S. Fortunately, Seattle, Hawaii, and Houston are all now experimenting with this approach. And an independent Citizens’ Task Force on Charlotte/Mecklenburg Schools – studying optimal governance systems and management structures – recently recommended that the local system employ a WSF method.

WSF has a number of key advantages over traditional funding mechanisms. First, weighted formulas provide greater funding flexibility so that students needing more money (low-income or disabled children, for example) can get it. Second, WSF empowers school leaders in decision-making, giving them the authority and leeway to make financial determinations often addressed by school districts. Third, WSF ensures that schools serving a disproportionately high population of disadvantaged students have the resources they need to serve them well and lure top-notch instructors.

Weighted funding is also politically palatable, resolving hot-button issues on both sides of the aisle in American education. WSF remediates funding inequities in schools – a plus for more liberally-minded policymakers. Weighted funding also expands educational freedom by permitting money to follow students to charter schools or public schools of choice – a critical tenet of conservative education reform proposals.

Not surprisingly, then, the Fund the Child 100% Solution has an impressive (and bipartisan) list of signatories, including, among others: North Carolina’s own former Governor James Hunt, former U. S. Secretaries of Education Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, and Shirley Hufstedler, and Clint Bolick, President of the Alliance for School Choice. A number of state policymakers and I have also registered support.

Stay tuned. This small – but determined – uprising just may launch an education funding revolution.