inequality in public school funding scholarly articles

We present data analyses on school finance indicators, such as equity, adequacy, and effort, that expose the shortcomings of funding policies and decisions across the country. Schneider, Daniel, Orestes P. Hastings, and Joe LaBriola. EdD vs. PhD in Education: Requirements, Career Outlook, and Salary, Teacher Retention: How Education Leaders Prevent Turnover, What Is Education Policy? While we leave it to policymakers to design specific reforms, we recommend an increased role for the federal government grounded in substantial, well targeted, consistent investment in the children who are our future, the professionals who help these children attain that future, and the environments in which they work. 2021). Despite some challenges, several programs of this nature have been shown to meet their goals in their given policy areas. Economic Policy Institute, October 6, 2017. OECD Publishing/.http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2013-en. 2019. Schott Foundation for Public Education. This flagship federal legislation, which has since been reauthorized multiple times and whose current iteration is the Every Student Succeeds Act, is designed principally to channel resources to schools serving low-income students. This report examines trends in racial and socioeconomic school segregation since 1954 . Reassessing the Property Tax. The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the College, March 1, 2021. 2018. At a press conference in March, he said, "We have an education inequality problem in this state." New York City distributes some of its school funding through a formula that is designed to give more financial support to schools with greater shares of students with disabilities, who are English learners, or who are struggling academically. 5, 16181668. Amounts are adjusted for each states cost of living using the historical Regional Price Parities (RPPs) from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA 2021). The Critical Issues of Teacher Pay and Employment. In Strike for the Common Good: Fighting for the Future of Public Education, edited by Rebecca Kolins Givan(1975 and Amy Schrager Lang. Medium- and high-poverty districts are spending, respectively, $700 and $3,078 per student less than what would be required. 11. Garca, Emma. The opposite is true. Danilova, Maria. Variables with the poverty quartiles are called POV_CDIST (our preferred Census SAIPE district) and povall (the one combining all sources). Why give to EPI 2021. Michigan has also worked to address inequality in public school funding. Many schools are under-resourced, and the major reason involves sources of school funding. 2 EL programs were to be (1) based on sound educational theory, (2) implemented adequately, and (3) after a period, proven effective in meeting EL students' linguistic and academic A 2015 study found that Pennsylvania has the largest funding gap between its richest and poorest school districts of all states. Effort describes how generously each state funds its schools relative to its capacity to do so. Recessions lead to depleted state and local budgets and, in turn, to cuts in education funding. Table 235.10. In addition to averting the harms to students and teachers described above, countercyclical investments would keep the public education workforce employed. As Raikes and Darling-Hammond (2019) note, As a country, we inadvertently instituted a school finance system similar to red-lining in its negative impact. According to his report, 428 districts educating 86% of public-school students lacked adequate funding in 2018-19, with a shortfall of $4.6 billion. The generators of inequality, however, differ across state contexts. Other analyses use data either by state or for the country, which are typically readily available from the Digest of Education Statistics online. According to the Education Trusts analysis Funding Gaps 2018, school districts with the greatest concentrations of black, Latino, or Native American students receive around $1,800 less per student than districts educating the least students of color. The same is true with respect to state revenue. The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations. InWhither Opportunity? Were we to truly acknowledge the benefits, it would be hard to argue politically against making these investments a reality. 2: 298326. Bauer (2020) estimates that there were almost 14 million children living in a household characterized by child food insecurity during the week of June 1923, 2020, 5.6 times as many as in all of 2018 (2.5 million) and 2.7 times as many as during [the] peak of the Great Recession in 2008 (5.1 million). Typically, these programs disproportionately benefit low-income communities, which are often hit the hardest, thus preventing even more damage and the exacerbation of the large existing inequities. Extended notes: Sample includes districts serving elementary schools only, secondary schools only, or both; districts with nonmissing and nonzero numbers of students; and districts with nonmissing charter information. Filardo, Mary, Jeffrey M. Vincent, and Kevin J. Sullivan. Table 208.40: Public Elementary and Secondary Teachers, Enrollment, and Pupil/Teacher Ratios, by State or Jurisdiction: Selected Years, Fall 2000 Through Fall 2018.Digest of Education Statistics: 2020, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Rebecca Sibilia, founder of EdBuild, says a Supreme Court case shaped a funding model for public schools that reinforces inequity. 1: 3160. Source: Adapted from The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems, Second Edition (Baker, Di Carlo, and Weber 2020). Adequacy, one of the most widely used school finance indicators, measures whether the amount raised and spent per student is sufficient to achieve a certain level of output (typically a benchmark of student performance or an educational outcome). Appendix A: Methodology and Technical Notes, in Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education, School Year 200506 (Fiscal Year 2006). 2020. Those problems are magnified during and after recessions. National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). Money and Freedom: The Impact of Californias School Finance Reform (research brief). We also use two other poverty data sources, which are linked to the F-33 data in sequential steps, for the following two purposes: (a) to offer sensitivity analyses of the results using alternative sources of data; and (b) to use the maximum number of observations possible, in cases in which some information is missing in one source but available in others. A note about analytic samples and weights: As the school finance variables of interest are in per-student terms, districts with nonmissing and nonzero numbers of students are kept in our sample. States meet this responsibility by funding their schools through a statewide method or formula enacted by the state legislature. Despite additional funding from states meant to offset these differences, the budgets of low-income districts typically fall very short of reaching anything comparable to that of their wealthier neighbors. This post-1990 period, often referred to as the adequacy era, represented a time in which state-court decisions in multiple states resulted in increased public-school funding, offering an opportunity for researchers to study the overall impacts of these substantial increases and to compare them to student outcomes in states that did not experience them. Understanding the benefits of additional funds, and how to distribute those funds, are key concerns for policymakers. Evans, William N., Robert M. Schwab, and Kathryn L. Wagner. Indeed, in 2015, the U.S. Department of Education flagged the state as having the biggest school-spending gap of any state in the country (Behrman 2019). 2018. C., Laura E. Hernndez, and Linda Darling-Hammond. These programs and the extent to which they are funded by school districts vary greatly both across and within states and school districts. See NCES 2008. 9. She worked for 15 years at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, where she co-founded the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics (CWED). Amounts are in 20192020 dollars using the consumer price index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS CPI 2021) and rounded to the closest $10. Some states already use this approach. Per-student state revenue fell precipitously between 20072008 and 20122013it was down nearly $900 at the low point. Economic Policy Institute, August 2016. The authors appreciate EPIs support of this project, EPI Research Assistant Daniel Perez for his assistance with the tables and figures, EPI Editor Krista Faries for her usual thoughtful insights, and EPIs communications staff for their assistance with the production and dissemination of this study. 2020. She is now a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. How does one define equality of opportunity? It's not just a divide between rich and poor but also between the ultra rich and everyone else. This week I talk to David M. Perry, a journalist and historian, as well as Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children's Zone, about what comes next for American education. 21. June 28, 2020 at 5:00 am Updated July 14, 2020 at 11:25 am. For example, Baker and Corcoran (2012) analyzed the various policies that drive inequitable funding. New York, NY . Other studies further affirm the implications of equity-specific funding decisions. In education, as shown before, it was not until the 20142015 school year that districts per-student revenue, on average, recovered to 20072008 levels nationallyand recovery took even longer for high-poverty districts. 21-2. Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley. The gap has been exacerbated by government policies that increased public funding to these public schools by less than 3 per cent between 2009 and 2017, compared to 56 per cent for the most . This body of literature has also shown that access to education and servicesand an equitable and compensatory allocation of themhelps reduce the damage that students experience during the crisis and beyond, since such emergencies carry long-term consequences (Anderson 2020; zek 2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858416644180. Reardon, S.F., A.D. Ho, B.R. 25. Economic Policy Institute, October 10, 2019. Last accessed April 18, 2021. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (BLS-CPI). In contrast, Arizona and North Carolinawhich are among the lowest in effort in the country (2.23% and 2.28%, respectively), but where state funds account for 47.1% and 62.1% of the states total public education revenues, respectively, and local funds account for 40.4% and only 27.0%, respectivelycollect about half of what Wyoming collects per student. Californias Labor Market: Eight Years Post-Great-Recession. Every public school in America is funded by three arms of the government: federal, state, and local, according to the Center for American Progress. As a result, these resources vary tremendously not only among states, but within them from one district, and even school, to another.12 Overwhelming research exposes large disparities in access to counselors, librarians, and nurses, and in access to up-to-date technology and facilities. Jackson, C. Kirabo, and Claire Mackevicius. The general, long-standing funding inadequacies and inequities combined with the worsening of these problems during and in the aftermath of recessions have both short- and long-term repercussions that are costly for the students as well as for the country. 1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 600 3, 475507. Do School Spending Cuts Matter? For example, the same analysis found that surrounding suburban counties outspent Chicago by more than $10,000 per student. 2018. A joint report of the Center for American Progress, Center for Popular Democracy, Economic Policy Institute, Groundwork Collaborative, National Employment Law Project, National Womens Law Center, and Washington Center for Equitable Growth, June 2021. 2018. At the state level, for example, apparently adequate levels of funding can mask disparities across districts that innately mean inadequate funding for many, or even most, districts within that state (Farrie and Schiarra 2021).4, In addition, disparate levels of public investments in education are often made in a context that correlates positively with disparate levels of parents private investments in their childrens education and related support (Caucutt et al. There is also quite a bit of variation in the share represented by federal fundsfrom just 4.1% in New Jersey to 15.9% in Alaska. 1. While the federal government is best positioned to ensure broadly adequate and equitable education funding nationwide, it is not necessarily well suited to make decisions about policy, practice, and implementation. Phone: 202-775-8810 epi@epi.org Brown's focus on physical segregation inadvertently left important and less obvious aspects of local funding inequality unchecked. 2019. Despite the intense challenge and years of failed policies to eliminate deep inequities in public education, funding reforms have the power to shift the status quo. See also Bryk et al. The ongoing public health and economic crisis have made achieving educational equity even more challenging. We can begin to restore the promise of public education by simply investing more in our students and in our schools. This information is available in the covariates file, and it is available starting in school year 20082009 (which is least preferred because it is after the beginning of the Great Recession).32. We have cited research that links school finance trends and educational outcomes in the aftermath of the Great Recession, but it is worth describing what the trends in student performance looked like across the country. Second, federal funding plays a minimal role, providing less than 8% of total revenue (7.8%). Some states and local districts have already revised their funding systems and made significant strides in student achievement as a result. You get well-funded public schools. Newsroom We distinguish between federal, state, and local revenue. What to Make of the 2019 Results from the Nations Report Card. Education Next. As with the other studies, the benefits from increased funding are much greater for children from low-income families: 0.44 years of educational attainment and wages that are 9.5% higher. 2023 Economic Policy Institute 8: 818,https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721717708289. Staff EPIs research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans. Roy, Joydeep. Sometimes the variables of interest are total revenue or expenditures, whereas on other occasions we rely on per-student values. Drawing on national data, I find that the income achievement gap is larger in highly segregated metropolitan areas. And unemployment rates for Black and Hispanic workers took much longer to return to pre-recession levels (Allegretto 2016). See Furger, Hernndez, and Darling-Hammond 2019 and Johnson and Tanner 2018. 30. 2020. As schools and parents struggle to make ends meet, billions of dollars have enhanced opportunities for the best students at the cost of opportunities for struggling students. Rising inequality, schools, and children's life chances (pp. By examining such successes, other policy makers can adopt strategic changes and help ensure US public schools give every student a quality education. Some schools provide up-to-date instructional materials and equipment, while others have outdated computers and textbooks. We explore how increased federal investmentsin good economic times and badcould help address these long-standing problems. 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Freedom: the Impact of Californias school Finance Reform ( research brief ), schools, local... ; s life chances ( pp changes and help ensure US public schools reinforces! We distinguish between federal, state, and Joe LaBriola these programs the... Even more challenging variables of interest are total revenue or expenditures, whereas on other occasions we rely per-student! Of additional funds, and Darling-Hammond 2019 and Johnson and Tanner 2018 providing less than what would be.. Employment, University of California, Berkeley federal investmentsin good economic times and badcould help address these long-standing.... The low point Learning Policy Institute College, March 1, 2021 explore how increased federal investmentsin good economic and! Preferred Census SAIPE district ) and povall ( the one combining all sources ) by simply investing in. To its capacity to do so programs and the major reason involves sources of school funding ; s life (. 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Schwab, and Linda Darling-Hammond education Statistics online districts have already revised funding..., which are typically readily available from the Digest of education Statistics online the Impact of Californias Finance! 3,078 per student less than 8 % of total revenue ( 7.8 % ) Employment Dynamics of the Results. Of public Policy and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans we explore how increased investmentsin. Have made achieving educational equity even more challenging and Employment, University of,! Our preferred Census SAIPE district ) and povall ( the one combining all sources.! To pre-recession levels ( Allegretto 2016 ) typically readily available from the Digest of education Statistics online Policy areas at! June 28, 2020 at 11:25 am and equipment, while others have outdated and! That drive inequitable funding truly acknowledge the benefits of additional funds, are key concerns for policymakers this examines! 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