Just plug in some expert assumptions and out pops the exact dollar amount your neighborhood store would need to provide quality food to its customers. The Oregon Quality Education Model purportedly shows exactly how much money should be spent in every public school. Just let the central planners spend this amount and the faults in our education system will be cured, or so the model's creators claim. Spend these amounts, we are assured, and 90 percent of the students will receive a quality education and be able to earn the new Certificate of Initial Mastery. We may give lip service to honoring diversity, but the model will drive us toward standardization.
Nobody gets any money back if fewer students learn.
Even if only 50 percent pass the required tests, the system still keeps all the money. Any model that imposes top-down funding schemes is bound to fail because it cannot respond to consumer needs. To the extent the governor's new budget moves us toward more centralized control of education, it too will fail. Find ways, such as charter schools, to let parents and children spend whatever education dollars are available in the schools of their choice. Let the dollars follow the students, just as dollars follow the shoppers in our grocery stores.