Bill gives at-risk students shot at economic success

By Brice Wallace 

A bill being considered by the Legislature aims to improve the chances that at-risk school students become more economically successful as adults. SB142 would require the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee to complete an evaluation and make recommendations for future legislation regarding public education funding and address funding for students who are at risk. It calls for a “weighted pupil unit add-on” for at-risk students — essentially providing more funding for students who receive free or reduced-price lunch or who are English language learners.

The bill was the topic of a recent Newsmaker Breakfast at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, whose research reveals that one in three Utah students, or more than 200,000 students, experience economic hardship that causes them to have worse education results as early as third grade, compared to other students. That continues throughout their K-12 education.

“These results can follow students through their lifetime and impact their future economic success,” said Natalie Gochnour, the institute’s director.

Backing up the concept are stats from 2019 that show the poverty rate being over 15 percent for people who attained less than a high school diploma but only 4 percent if they had a bachelor’s degree or more. Unemployment rate stats recorded a similar trend. Meanwhile, the more education attainment, the higher a person’s median annual earnings.

“We know that they need more support and more resources to be successful,” Senate Majority Whip Ann Millner, R-Ogden, said of economically disadvantaged students. “We know if we can help them be successful, they can graduate, they can go on to post-secondary, whether that’s technical college or college, but certainly the research shows students from other states that have done this that if you make that investment, you will get a higher graduation rate, you will get students graduating and being able to earn more money, and having the opportunity to really meet their potential.”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, said the bill is a step toward ensuring long-term, sustainable funding for at-risk students that increases as overall education funding grows “to ensure that every child in Utah has an equal chance for a quality education.”

That targeted approach would be in contrast to the traditional funding method, he said. “Before, we’ve just have put in dollar amounts and that has just kind of been butter that’s spread over more and more bread over time,” he said. SB142 would help fund various programs that benefit at-risk students, he said.

That additional money would follow the children to the school he or she attends and help educate them “in the personalized way that that child needs,” instead of having “big, global programs with a lot of individual rules,” Fillmore said.

At press time, the bill had passed in the Senate and was advanced from a House committee, but it had been returned to the House Rules Committee due to the fiscal impact. Legislative documents indicate the bill would cost the state board of education $900,000 in ongoing and $2.6 million in one-time funding. The Legislature’s general session ends March 5.

Fillmore said the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee’s review could take one to three years. “We’re going to be working on this probably for the next decade,” Millner said.

A fact sheet about the topic, available at https://gardner.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/EdFunding-FS-Feb2021.pdf, indicates that a 10 percent increase in per-pupil spending for low-income children for all 12 years of public school is associated with a 9.6 percent increase in earnings and lower poverty incidence.

The targeted funding, it said, not only would benefit the individual students through increased earnings and economic mobility, but also improve Utah’s long-term future for everyone by making a stronger community, boosting GDP, and lowering both the unemployment rate and poverty rate.