RE: Question 1: Funding Model

The suggestion to 'examine schools and programs that are successful' is worthwhile IF

*You carefully define success to be more than scores on a standardized test that attempts to measure a sampling of the learning intended: such as "How well do our elementary students do in middle school courses?"  "How well do our high school students do in their life choices, whether it is work or college?"

*You factor in the needs and achievement of each student.  Students who live in poverty, move frequently during the school year, are impacted by military issues such as deployment of one or both parents, or are second language learners may not score at the same level as high income, non-mobile, English only students.  How do we best measure the learning of each student?  How can we measure both how close each student is coming to learning the content....and how much growth they make during a school year? A student who is just learning English in high school and is struggling with high school content has so much more to learn than the student who is only learning high school content and already knows English.