Virginia currently has a pretty complex funding formula that attempts to calculate how many teachers are needed for each group of students, how many other staff in a variety of roles are needed, salaries and benefits for all those different staff positions, extra costs for students with higher needs, etc.  There’s also a lot of problems with this formula as it stands that result in the state not actually paying its fair share of educational costs and many students not having access to a high-quality education; you can read about those here.

The state’s legislative research agency, JLARC, released a report in July 2023 outlining a number of important recommendations for improving Virginia’s public schools, and also included some “policy options” that legislators could consider for making broader changes. This included the option of moving to a simpler funding formula that would provide more flexibility to local school divisions. Under that simpler model with more local control, the state would provide its share of a per-pupil amount and its share of additional funding (or “add-ons”) for a few groups of students who need more support to thrive (students from low-income families, English language learners, and students with disabilities). There would be a few additional adjustments under this proposal, including for regional differences in the cost of labor and the higher per-pupil costs faced by very small school divisions, but overall it would be a much less complex approach and is more similar to what most states use. 

The benefits of this simpler formula include that it would be easier for people to understand and that it would give more flexibility to local school boards and superintendents to spend money on what they see as the highest priorities. Of course, that’s also the downside from some perspectives – the state, which pays a big part of school costs, wouldn’t have as much say in exactly how that money is spent compared to the current formula that prescribes certain numbers of teachers and other staff positions for different student groups.

In 2023, Virginia’s budget language established a Joint Subcommittee to Study Elementary and Secondary Education Funding and required that it (i) review the recommendations and policy options in JLARC’s July 2023 report; (ii) determine the appropriateness of implementing each recommendation or policy option, (iii) propose appropriate amendments to each recommendation or policy option and (iv) develop a long-range plan for the phased implementation of its recommendations. 

During Fall 2024, the Joint Subcommittee began studying the option of switching to a student-based formula and also recommended, as an interim step, implementation during the 2025 legislative session of two key improvements based on JLARC’s report. These were fully lifting the arbitrary cap on state funding for support staff and providing an add-on to provide additional support for Virginia’s students with disabilities. Both these recommendations were included in the legislature’s 2025 budget proposal and will go into effect for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. 

You can follow the work of the Joint Subcommittee here.

Fund Our Schools believes that improving adequacy and equity in funding for public school students is fundamental to improving educational outcomes in Virginia. The same principles hold for considering a funding formula overhaul: policymakers must prioritize boosting funding adequacy and equity in any overhaul of our funding formula. Doing so is far more important for educational outcomes than whether we do calculations in a more detailed or more flexible way.

It depends! JLARC staff provided a sample student-based formula based mostly on actual typical costs in Virginia, and their version would increase state funding for schools. But the final outcome would be very dependent on what numbers are selected for the basic per-pupil funding amount, the add-ons for students who face greater barriers, and other variables.

The Local Composite Index (LCI) determines how much of school costs (standards of quality-determined costs) should be paid by the state and the local government based on the local community’s capacity to fund schools. It’s different from the Standards of Quality (SOQ), which determines how much overall funding students need in order to have a high-quality education (although, as JLARC showed, in practice the SOQ formula doesn’t live up to that standard). JLARC did include a recommendation and some policy options to improve the LCI, although they found that overall it’s working pretty well (unlike the SOQ formula). More information on those proposals is available here.

Legislators should be meeting this summer and fall to continue discussing how to implement JLARC’s recommendations and whether to overhaul the funding formula. You can contact your legislator to let them know what matters to you for your local public school. You can also sign up for FOS’s email list to stay up to date on Joint Subcommittee meetings and opportunities for public comment.