Report Warns to “Watch the Gap” in
Education Funding
The United States “consistently spends fewer
dollars educating students in its highest-poverty and
highest-minority school districts than it does districts
with fewer of such students,” concludes The Education
Trust in its annual The Funding Gap report,
which was issued in January 2008. Emphasizing success
stories from states like Arkansas, Maryland and New
York, the report suggests that persistent funding gaps
in other states reflect a problem of “political
will” rather than “technical know-how.”
Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, says
the report is meant to “shine a light on the work
that must be done to make the promise of equal educational
opportunity real.” The report further argues that
inequitable funding policies weaken the effectiveness
of standards and accountability practices.
A Path to Progress
The Ed Trust reports that between 1999 and 2005, 10
states increased funding equity between high-poverty
and low-poverty districts by more than $200 per student,
and 16 states increased their funding gaps between these
districts by more than $200 per student.
The report notes that three of these states –
Maryland, Ohio and Wyoming – not only decreased
the funding gap, but they went from providing high poverty
districts with less funding per student to providing
them with more. It also highlights New York’s
“path to progress” from being ranked as
one of the most inequitable states in the past to being
recognized as one that has made significant progress
in reducing inequity over the six year period that was
studied. The Ed Trust attributes this progress to the
successful litigation won by the Campaign for Fiscal
Equity and its “vigorous and persistent advocacy
on behalf of low-income students and the school districts
that serve them.
Another state that has made enormous progress, according
to the report, is Arkansas. Responding to a series of
court rulings, the Arkansas legislature substantially
narrowed its inequity gap by increasing state aid to
educate low-income students. The report attributes the
success of these states – and others – to
their straightforward steps in 1) taking responsibility
for education funding at the state level, and 2) using
state dollars to target student needs and make up for
differences in local abilities to pay for education.
Yet, despite these success stories, the report also
highlights states with “troubling” records.
According to its data, from 1999 to 2005 Vermont’s
funding gap has grown by more than $2000 per student
after the state revised “Act 60” and the
strong equity mandate the legislature had issued after
a Court decision in 1997. On the same note, in Illinois,
where the courts have refused to take jurisdiction of
an adequacy case, the funding gap has grown from $1,568
in 1999 to $2,238 in 2005. The report also notes that
Illinois has had the second largest per-student gap
in the country for years.
Methodology
The report analyzes annual financial data from the
nation’s 14,000 school districts and includes
state-by-state analyses of funding trends from 1999
to 2005. It focuses on the distribution of state and
local resources and does not include federal funds.
For the first time, The Education Trust also includes
statistics on English language learner (ELL) students.
The report finds that just as is the case with high
poverty and high-minority districts, districts with
high percentages of ELLs generally receive less funding
than do districts with few or no ELL students. With
regard to this funding inequity, the authors of the
report conclude “it is not fair and it is not
good education policy.”
Prepared by Marcela Briceno, February 1, 2008
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