Last week, Mary Beth Schneider of the Indy Star wrote a harsh piece in which she said urban schools “took it on the chin” in the new budget.

Senator Luke Kenley responds with the facts in a serious LTE smackdown. A must-read.

It is important to correct The Star’s inflammatory mischaracterization of the state education funding formula in the front page article on July 6.

The article pits children of one community against children of other communities and pits communities against each other. It tries to divide our people against each other on the grounds of rich versus poor, rural versus suburban, suburban versus urban, and even hints at race versus race.

It is disappointing for the largest paper in the state to take this tack, but even more so because the facts do not support the conclusion.

Clearly, education funding for all our children is the highest collective priority among all legislators. In difficult economic times, funding is hard to come by. To balance the load and spread the pain, we followed the principles of “funding follows the child” (we fund children where they are) and the “complexity index” (we provide additional money for children in demographically disadvantaged situations).

Since The Star has chosen to compare and analyze funding of particular school districts, it’s necessary to set the record straight on how the budget actually impacts those districts. For example, Hamilton Southeastern schools goes from $5,762 per child in 2009 to $5,701 in 2011, a loss of $61 per child over the next two years. Because it is anticipated to gain 1,600 children over the next two years, the corporation will receive about $8 million more. By contrast, IPS goes from $8,580 per child in 2009 to $9,014, a gain per child of $434 over the next two years. Because the district is losing 4,000 students over the next two years (based on its own estimate), the corporation loses $20 million.

In addition, IPS gets an additional $1,240 per child each year in federal stimulus money, while Hamilton Southeastern gets an additional $11 per child of federal money.

All told, IPS has about twice as many students and gets three times as much money.

At the end, we added $54 million to the formula and drove that money to urban schools and rural schools with declining enrollment.

The article fails to focus on the real questions: How do we better educate students in places like Indianapolis, where we spend the same basic amount that we pay for a year of college tuition — and still have unacceptably high dropout rates, low ISTEP scores and very poor graduation rates? How do we provide a sufficient scholastic challenge for all students to enable them to be the successful contributing adults our state needs? How do we ensure that all children, no matter where they live or what challenges they face, have the best opportunity for a quality educational experience?

More than money will be necessary to resolve these questions. Every child can succeed. Commitment to excellence, a willingness to change and an attitude that promotes unity — not finger pointing or class warfare — are essential components in addressing this issue.

Hoosiers can meet this challenge, if properly informed and motivated.