SPECIAL FEATURE: Louisiana’s School Funding Reckoning: Teacher Pay, the MFP, and the Need for a Bigger Conversation
Louisiana’s debate over teacher pay has exposed a deeper problem that policymakers can no longer afford to ignore: the state’s public education funding system is increasingly disconnected from student enrollment, taxpayer expectations, and the educational needs of Louisiana’s children and their families.
Governor Jeff Landry’s recent executive order directing the redirection of $168 million within the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP)—the state’s public school funding formula—to fund teacher and school support worker stipends has sparked intense controversy. Under the proposal, classroom teachers would receive $2,000 stipends and support workers would receive $1,000, while school districts would see an average reduction or redirection of roughly 5% in “block grant” state aid. The Governor argues that teachers deserve certainty and that Louisiana must continue prioritizing educator compensation.
He and legislative leadership have also raised the important, valid question of how existing money in the system is being used, pointing to administrative bloat and failure to adjust operations and streamline spending in light of dwindling student enrollment.
At the same time, legislative leaders have established a task force to study the MFP and develop recommendations for a more sustainable approach to funding teacher pay. That effort is welcome and overdue. But if lawmakers limit their review to the MFP formula alone, they risk missing the larger structural issues that brought Louisiana to this moment.
The immediate controversy stems from the collapse of the state’s previous plan to provide permanent teacher raises. Following voters’ rejection of a constitutional amendment that would have helped local school systems finance permanent salary increases, state leaders were left searching for a way to preserve compensation levels that educators have come to expect—thanks to state-provided stipends over recent years. Not wanting to exacerbate state spending and having limited authority to force reduced public school spending elsewhere, the governor has proposed redirecting money already flowing to school systems.
The reaction from many superintendents and school boards has been swift. District leaders argue that reducing MFP funding will force difficult budget decisions and could affect services that support students. Those concerns deserve consideration, but they bear the burden of proof—not only pointing to instructional and operational costs, but explaining why structural fiscal reforms aren’t being pursued as demand for public education is obviously shrinking.
But they also raise two important questions. Why are school systems that have experienced years of declining enrollment requiring ever-increasing levels of taxpayer funding? And how did we get here?
Louisiana public schools educate tens of thousands fewer students than they did just a decade ago, and enrollment is projected to continue falling in the years ahead. In March, State Superintendent Cade Brumley informed BESE members that the state Department of Education expected public school enrollment to drop by another 12,000-13,000 students in fiscal year 2026-2027.
In response to concerns about a corresponding drop in state MFP revenue amid rising costs due to inflation, BESE proposed allowing school systems to keep $30 million in projected MFP revenue loss in the upcoming fiscal year for “mandated costs.”
In addition to BESE’s proposal for added MFP funding, lawmakers were asked by stakeholders to increase funding in other areas, including early childhood/preK, tutoring, special education, career education and work-based learning, charter school facilities, and early literacy supports. Education bills having significant fiscal impact were debated and some passed. Teacher organizations and the press continued asking whether the legislature would make previous year teacher and support worker stipends permanent. These asks were essentially a repeat of prior years when the legislature had largely accommodated.
The problem recently acknowledged by state leaders didn’t emerge overnight. It’s the result of years of policy decisions at both the state and local levels.
As Louisiana’s public-school enrollment has steadily fallen, total education spending has continued to grow. In fact, Louisiana now spends more per student than any other state in the SEC.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) has routinely proposed increased state funding for public schools over the years to entice school leaders to advance state education policy priorities. These efforts have often been layered on top of what schools were already doing instead of reprioritizing and shifting existing resources.
Lawmakers and governors have largely concurred with BESE’s requests for increased funding, happy to show their support for public education. But rarely, if ever, did these funding deliberations involve collecting and analyzing information about how local school boards were adapting spending to declining enrollment, prioritizing competitive employee compensation within their budgets, pursuing operational efficiencies, attempting to raise local revenue, and consolidating operations and underutilized facilities.
What has emerged is a system that is unsustainable for both state and local governments and indefensible to taxpayers.
Source: Louisiana Department of Education
This year, the Legislature flatly rejected most requests for increased funding for public education. In so doing, they pointed to schools’ continued inability to comply with a state requirement to spend at least 70% of MFP funds on instruction, a term defined very broadly. They also pointed to several questionable expenditures published on the state’s K-12 School Transparency Project dashboard. At two press conferences where Governor Landry addressed the MFP and teacher pay raises, he displayed a chart similar to the one above showing increased school spending and declining student enrollment.
Photo by Javier Gallegos, The Advocate
In addition to increased funding and spending, many local school systems have maintained or even expanded staffing and administrative structures despite serving fewer students. Between 2014-2024, enrollment fell from 690,561 to 653,814—a decline of more than 5%. During that same period, administrative staffing grew substantially, with school administrative personnel increasing by more than 19% and administrative support staff by nearly 12%.
Some local school systems have taken significant steps to prioritize competitive teacher and support staff compensation, finding efficiencies within existing budgets and/or making a compelling case to voters in their communities to raise revenue. Others have not made much of an effort or have failed to convince voters. At the same time, state leaders have increasingly assumed responsibility for local school system employee compensation. While the state should certainly support teacher compensation, this trend has blurred the line between state and local responsibilities and reduced pressure on some school systems to prioritize compensation within their own budgets.
That reality helps explain why the current debate feels so unusual. Louisiana taxpayers are being asked to provide more money to a system serving fewer students, while the state increasingly assumes responsibility for employee compensation decisions that were once largely managed at the local level.
This does not mean teachers are overpaid. Far from it. High-quality teachers deserve competitive compensation, and Louisiana should strive to attract and retain excellent educators. The question is whether the current funding structure is organized around students and outcomes or around preserving existing systems and bureaucracies.
The newly created MFP task force represents a positive first step because it acknowledges that the current formula deserves scrutiny. However, it is ultimately inadequate as presently conceived.
The MFP is only one piece of Louisiana’s education finance system and doesn’t even capture all state funds allocated to public education. Any serious review should examine all sources of K-12 revenue, including local property taxes, sales taxes, federal funds, dedicated revenues, reserve balances, and other streams. Policymakers should also evaluate spending patterns, administrative costs, staffing trends, and long-term enrollment projections.
Most importantly, the conversation should not be limited to government-run school systems.
The purpose of education funding is not to sustain institutions. It is to help children succeed. If the goal is to support children, policymakers must evaluate not only how much money is spent, but where that money follows students and families.
That means state leaders should evaluate how resources can best support families, regardless of the educational setting they choose. Parents increasingly seek options that include specialized public schools, public charter schools, home-based education, microschools, virtual learning, and private schools. Those options are all too often limited by families’ income; Louisiana is far from offering families universal access to choice for their children’s education. Our state’s education funding system should recognize that reality and work to address that challenge.
Unfortunately, while lawmakers continue debating how to allocate billions within the traditional public school system, they again failed to fully fund the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) option they created for families two years ago. The result is a system that continues prioritizing institutions over families.
A comprehensive review of Louisiana education funding should therefore address three questions simultaneously:
- How can local school systems prioritize competitive and sustainable teacher and school support staff compensation, what supportive role should the state play?
- How can state and local governments fund public education in ways that improve student outcomes while remaining fiscally sustainable?
- How can state leaders ensure that education funding follows students to the school or home-based education setting that best meets their needs?
The MFP task force may help answer the first question. But unless policymakers broaden the conversation to include all education spending and all educational options, they will miss the opportunity to answer the second and third.
Louisiana’s education funding challenges did not emerge overnight, and they will not be solved by moving money from one line item to another. The state needs a student-centered funding strategy that respects taxpayers, rewards effective teaching, and empowers families with meaningful educational choices.
The current teacher-pay debate may have sparked this conversation, but Louisiana should use this moment to undertake a broader reexamination of how education funding serves students, families, and taxpayers alike. That is the larger reform Louisiana should pursue.
