In defense of delegated budgets in education

Delegated budgets have long been tickling the conscience of union leaders and politicians from the left spectrum, because they sharply touch their big wound - it is not "equal" and not "fair". Their idea, of course, is not for everyone to work equally (this is impossible) and receive equal wages, but on the contrary - it is for everyone to receive equally regardless of how much they work. They do it, of course, because this is deeply embedded in their psyche - they themselves are people who do not like to work very hard - they are painfully pleased that someone else makes the money, and they only distribute and spend it.

The argument against delegated budgets

The main argument of opponents of delegated budgets is that in this way "principals strive to keep every student at all costs". However, let's think about what would happen if suddenly school budgets stopped being delegated, that is, each school was provided with a fixed budget regardless of how much work is done inside. The immediate effect is that principals begin to punish their problematic students and gradually exclude them. Yes, however, in the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria there is a text that states that "school education up to the age of 16 is mandatory". And what happens to the excluded Ivancho, dear principals?

You start passing it around like a hot potato and a fight begins over who gets it when the local RUO slams the table and says "stop turning it off because we're going to give you an audit!". Note, however, that this is a fight to educate fewer students, not more. So are school principals waging war among themselves over who will provide less education?! Is this seriously the goal of the school education system?

Delegated budgets aren't perfect, but they're better than fixed ones

With a delegated budget, it is true that principals often strive to keep every child at all costs, and this leads to problems in many places. But there is an important second factor here – not only do principals want to keep students, but parents are also often forced to keep their child with them because they are pressured in various ways by the social authorities. When school education is compulsory until the age of 16, this means that only schools can receive subsidies (in our country, private schools can, with conditions that make it meaningless), i.e. problem students can hardly receive any alternative education, unless their parents are wealthy people. And yes, it is not mandatory, but most often the problem children in question are from poor families.

Well, let's now sit down firmly at the table and choose one of these two options:

1. If we decide that there should be compulsory schooling, then… the delegated budget is better than the fixed alternative, because no matter how many times you exclude a student, someone is still obliged to accept him to study with them. The fixed budget means passing the ball around and sending a problem child from one place to another and back again. The delegated budget means having to roll up your sleeves and solve that child's problem.
2. If we decide that education should not be compulsory only in its school form, then alternative forms of education, such as home education, can be encouraged. This clearly puts a focus on the possibility of addressing the specific needs of problematic students, whom the school system has great difficulty dealing with.

However, the current system needs improvement.

If a family of a troubled student can get the subsidy for him and invest it in private lessons, this student will hardly become super gifted and brilliant (this subsidy will probably not be enough to study him well), but at least he will learn something like an "average 3" and will not go to school where he not only learns nothing, but also prevents everyone else from studying!

But wait, were we talking about delegated budgets here? Yes, in this model the delegated budget continues to have an advantage over the fixed one, and even greater than in the previous point. If there are fixed school budgets in this model, the negative effect with the "passing the ball" that I mentioned above will become titanically large.

Principals will exclude students for whatever reason because... well, it's convenient to do so, money doesn't decrease, right? Conversely - with delegated budgets for schools, in combination withthe competitionof alternative forms of education, principals will be forced to improve the quality of the service if they want their school to survive. They will have to think about how to actually work with problem students and solve their problems, because that is the only way they will be able to take their money - if they don't manage, they will leave.

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