Public School Funding in America: Mass inequalities, underfunded, getting worse. Let's fix it

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

Using this NPR story “Why America’s Schools Have A Money Problem” from a couple of years ago for background.

These days, when we ask “the inhabitants in general” to help pay for their schools, we usually start with local property taxes. That’s nothing new. The property tax is an old idea, older than America itself.

The problem with a school-funding system that relies so heavily on local property taxes is straightforward: Property values vary a lot from neighborhood to neighborhood, district to district. And with them, tax revenues.

It makes sense that areas that had more taxes collected, i.e. wealthier neighborhoods often with bigger businesses located within them. As such, going to public school in Beverly Hills is a lot different than in Compton.

According to the National Counsel of State Legislators:

No state has completely abandoned the use of the property tax as a source of revenue for public schools. States have shifted from a reliance on local property tax revenues as a substantial source of funding. In these cases (e.g., Indiana and Michigan) the state took on a larger role in the administration of the property tax revenues, in essence shifting from local property tax reliance to state property tax oversight.

So the solution in most states has been for the states to make up the difference in areas lagging behind their more affluent areas but thus far states have been unable to significantly address inequalities. The NPR piece mentions that it has been implemented in North Carolina where the state handles two-thirds of the funding (in the country as a whole most school districts are funded 10% by the federal government and the remainder is equally split by local and state funding).

I couldn’t find any information as to how successful this has been in the Tarheel State though I did find a FAQ of sorts that spells all of it out in a pretty even-handed way.

I bring this up because Pennsylvania keeps on trying to address the dual desire to lower property taxes and fund the schools but they have failed because they include taxing groceries which is a nonstarter for politicians on both sides of the aisle. That hasn’t stopped the guy with “$12,000 in property taxes” from posting the failed bill dozens of times in the community group, oblivious to the fact that robbing Peter to pay Paul is only good for Paul (and that Peter will be affected much more significantly).

In the 2018 midterms, several states and one city had ballot initiatives addressing school funding with mixed results:

Most of them were successful, with six education initiatives passing overall, in places like Seattle, Washington; Georgia; Maryland; Montana; and two in the state of Maine.

Four education initiatives were defeated in Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah.

What is the solution? Does North Carolina - bearing in mind economic slowdowns and recessions can kill the state budget - have the right idea? Can we look to other countries or does our state system and a lack of real federal oversight/funding make us have to find fifty solutions for a fifty-state problem?

Education inequality is a huge problem in this country. The reliance on property taxes has created generations of kids whose quality of education depended considerably more on their zip code than their aptitude. It’s an issue that is now beginning to gain more prominence as inequalities in other facets of American life are examined more closely than in the past. How can we fix this?

[Urbanredneck]

I dont know.

States only have so much money which must also go for roads, parks, public safety, public health, etc…

We have a growing number of seniors who are on fixed incomes who cannot pay more taxes.

Too high of taxes means people and businesses might not want to move there.

Some schools serving different populations just require more money than others.

No easy answers.

[asahi]

The problems with schools reflect social and economic problems in the community, which also span generations. I think fixing schools has to be seen as part of a larger economic initiative to benefit at-risk communities or communities in need (or whatever we want to call them). To do this, there has to be a commitment by all, especially those who have the wealth, to improve socioeconomic parity, and I just don’t see that as a major priority in a lot of cases. Parents with wealth want to send their children to private schools and will pay big money to do so; conversely, they often seek to move away from communities that impose tax burdens, and thus essentially de-fund communities that need tax base the most.

[Urbanredneck]

@asahi

The problems with schools reflect social and economic problems in the community, which also span generations. I think fixing schools has to be seen as part of a larger economic initiative to benefit at-risk communities or communities in need (or whatever we want to call them). To do this, there has to be a commitment by all, especially those who have the wealth, to improve socioeconomic parity, and I just don’t see that as a major priority in a lot of cases. Parents with wealth want to send their children to private schools and will pay big money to do so; conversely, they often seek to move away from communities that impose tax burdens, and thus essentially de-fund communities that need tax base the most.

Exactly what happened in Kansas City Missouri. The KCMO district was majority white until the 1960’s. Then and up thru the 1970’s as more black families moved in the white families left to either the suburbs or to private schools. So many families that might still live in the district, send their kids to private so they vote down tax increases. The district had not approved a bond increase for over 20 years till a state court case forced it in the 90’s.

Now in contrast Kansas City KANSAS, on the other side of the state line, has few private schools so they have voted for tax increases and the KCK schools are generally seen as good even though they serve the same working class and inner city neighborhoods.

Now back to KCMO, people are moving back and buying up the cheap property. BUT, they usually dont have kids and if they do, its private schools.

[MDfive21]

@asahi

The problems with schools reflect social and economic problems in the community, which also span generations. I think fixing schools has to be seen as part of a larger economic initiative to benefit at-risk communities or communities in need (or whatever we want to call them). To do this, there has to be a commitment by all, especially those who have the wealth, to improve socioeconomic parity, and I just don’t see that as a major priority in a lot of cases. Parents with wealth want to send their children to private schools and will pay big money to do so; conversely, they often seek to move away from communities that impose tax burdens, and thus essentially de-fund communities that need tax base the most.

@Urbanredneck

Exactly what happened in Kansas City Missouri. The KCMO district was majority white until the 1960’s. Then and up thru the 1970’s as more black families moved in the white families left to either the suburbs or to private schools. So many families that might still live in the district, send their kids to private so they vote down tax increases. The district had not approved a bond increase for over 20 years till a state court case forced it in the 90’s.

Now in contrast Kansas City KANSAS, on the other side of the state line, has few private schools so they have voted for tax increases and the KCK schools are generally seen as good even though they serve the same working class and inner city neighborhoods.

Now back to KCMO, people are moving back and buying up the cheap property. BUT, they usually dont have kids and if they do, its private schools.

same in Houston. i can’t find the cite but there was a study done years ago that came up with a # where something like a 40% minority population in schools would drive the remaining white population out to the burbs or private. any less than that % and you still have a majority white school.

i think the only fair way to do this is for a state or federal entity to provide most of the funding ala NC, and then have local jurisdictions pay for the rest of what they want. ie, fed/state provides a base level of school service for all and let the locals fill in the nice-to-haves. the problem with this is you’ll run into the same political problems that medicare for all is having in the healthcare arena.

for more on Houston, look into ‘Houston recapture payments’ and enjoy the show. Houston Chronicle and Texas Tribune do an ok job covering the day to day, but there are probably long form articles that sum it up much better.

fwiw, we went private elementary due to the public school budget cuts this year and general clusterfuckery in the school board, but only because DD is a high performer. if she was middle of the pack i don’t think private would be worth it.

[puddleglum]

@Urbanredneck

Exactly what happened in Kansas City Missouri. The KCMO district was majority white until the 1960’s. Then and up thru the 1970’s as more black families moved in the white families left to either the suburbs or to private schools. So many families that might still live in the district, send their kids to private so they vote down tax increases. The district had not approved a bond increase for over 20 years till a state court case forced it in the 90’s.

Now in contrast Kansas City KANSAS, on the other side of the state line, has few private schools so they have voted for tax increases and the KCK schools are generally seen as good even though they serve the same working class and inner city neighborhoods.

Now back to KCMO, people are moving back and buying up the cheap property. BUT, they usually dont have kids and if they do, its private schools.

In Kansas City Missouri, they had a court case in 85 that claimed in order to desegregate the schools they had to spend a lot more on the schools. The court agreed and ordered the city and state to 2 billion dollars over ten years. They became the best funded school system in the country. The new funding was $5,400 per year per student which almost doubled the previous spending. They built a pool with an underwater viewing room, tv and animation studios, a zoo, a wildlife park sanctuary, and a model UN with simultaneous translation. The Student to teacher ratio dropped to the lowest in the country. The results were that segregation got worse, the black white achievement gap got worse, test scores did not improve, and drop out rates got worse.

[puddleglum]

One should never believe what NPR says without checking first. The article is misleading because it only talks about state and local funding. Federal funding is generally tied to poverty among the students. This means that the bulk of federal money goes to poor districts. This more than makes up for local and state funding discrepancies and in just about every state poorer districts get more funding per student than rich districts.

[Buck_Godot]

@puddleglum

In Kansas City Missouri, they had a court case in 85 that claimed in order to desegregate the schools they had to spend a lot more on the schools. The court agreed and ordered the city and state to 2 billion dollars over ten years. They became the best funded school system in the country. The new funding was $5,400 per year per student which almost doubled the previous spending. They built a pool with an underwater viewing room, tv and animation studios, a zoo, a wildlife park sanctuary, and a model UN with simultaneous translation. The Student to teacher ratio dropped to the lowest in the country. The results were that segregation got worse, the black white achievement gap got worse, test scores did not improve, and drop out rates got worse.

cite?

[Buck_Godot]

@puddleglum

One should never believe what NPR says without checking first. The article is misleading because it only talks about state and local funding. Federal funding is generally tied to poverty among the students. This means that the bulk of federal money goes to poor districts. This more than makes up for local and state funding discrepancies and in just about every state poorer districts get more funding per student than rich districts.

Given that only about 10% of school funding comes from the Federal governmentI find it hard to believe that it could make up for any discrepancy.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Buck_Godot

Given that only about 10% of school funding comes from the Federal governmentI find it hard to believe that it could make up for any discrepancy.

Yeah, and that’s the same figure in the NPR citation.

Also, the proposed Trump budget cuts Education funding by $7.1 billion dollars “eliminating 29 programs, including after-school and summer programs for students in high-poverty areas, among other things,” so even if most of the federal funds are going to impoverished areas, that number has always been small and the current administration seems keen on making it even smaller.

Not so sure how that’s going to help with the inequalities inherent with the system. Seems to me it’ll make things worse.

[puddleglum]

@Buck_Godot

cite?

Easyto find. These things were not done in a corner.

[GIGObuster]

@Buck_Godot

Given that only about 10% of school funding comes from the Federal governmentI find it hard to believe that it could make up for any discrepancy.

It does not indeed, puddleglum needs to show that sorry source he relied on.

According to this other report from The Education Trust, the number was a bit lower, they are looking at the same source, but different years.

https://1k9gl1yevnfp2lpq1dhrqe17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FundingGapReport_2018_FINAL.pdf
FUNDING GAPS.

AN ANALYSIS OF SCHOOL FUNDING EQUITY ACROSS THE U.S. AND WITHIN EACH STATE

To account for these additional needs, we repeated our analysis with the assumption: that it costs a district 40 percent more to educate a student in poverty than not in poverty. This figure is based on the federal Title I formula, and, in all likelihood, is an underestimate. Research shows that it could cost twice as much, or more, to educate a student from a low-income background to the same standards as a student from a more affluent background.

In addition, federal funds make up a relatively small share of
public education funding. In 2013–2014, federal funds represented
8.7 percent of revenues for public elementary and secondary
schools across the nation. See, National Center for Education
Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics (2016), “Table 235.10:
Revenues for public elementary and secondary schools, by source
of funds: Selected years, 1919–20 through 2013–14,”

[puddleglum]

@Buck_Godot

Given that only about 10% of school funding comes from the Federal governmentI find it hard to believe that it could make up for any discrepancy.

The way it works is that local funding is uneven toward richer districts and state funding is uneven toward poor districts. Together, most funding ends slightly weighted toward poorer districts but less than $1,000 difference. That is why the federal funds mean that generally poorer districts get more funding. According to an Urban Institute studyonly 3 states have lower per student spending in poorer districts, Illinois, Wyoming, and Nevada, and those differences were small.

[GIGObuster]

@puddleglum

Easyto find. These things were not done in a corner.

And of course, good schools can’t be bought, However after dealing with the mismanagement the situation is better now… And it also needed plenty of money.

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article225276495.html

Bedell attributes the improvement to several changes since he became superintendent two years ago.

“We rewrote curriculum and that went into effect last year,” Bedell said. “We redesigned professional development and aligned it to what the state expects students to know, and we redesigned principal meetings,” to teach principals to be instructional leaders rather than just managers.

Bedell said the district also did simple things, such as having principals take the same assessment tests students take so they know what students are truly up against.

“We got back to the fundamentals of teaching and learning,” Bedell said. “I feel even better this year than I felt last year at this time.”

He made it clear, though, that he can’t take all the credit. “This is based on the hard work of our children,” Bedell said, adding, “and our teachers were working hard long before Dr. Bedell arrived.” He gave kudos to community groups and philanthropists as well as school board members who he said have supported the changes and doled out millions of dollars for initiatives vital to academic success, including new Chrome books for elementary students.

Then Bedell thanked his predecessors. He named former superintendents John Covington, Steve Green and Al Tunis, who he said all made tough decisions, including closing schools and gaining financial stability, that “paved the way for us to be here today.”

KCPS has been only provisionally accredited since 2014. It is one of six districts in the state that does not have full accreditation. But for the last four years Kansas City has been gaining ground.

In 2016 the district celebrated a score of 70 percent. At the time it was the highest score the district had seen in 30 years. But the district failed to maintain that level the following year. In 2017, due mostly to low attendance, the district dropped below 70 percent.

The new 2018 scores showed the district earned 5 out the the possible 8 points in social studies and 15 out of 16 possible points in English and in math. Science scores were not counted because the state was trying out a new test.

Because of changes in the tests, it will be another two years at least before all the test scores can be factored into a district’s APR measurement. Only then will districts be able to compare their improvement from one year to the next, Vandeven said.

“If you really want to look at whether we are improving as a state it will take a few years,” she said.

But Bedell said he will be looking at how his district fared compared to other urban districts and state averages. For example, 11.3 percent fewer Kansas City students scored at proficient and advanced levels in English this year. But the state number dropped 14 percent.

“So we are doing better than the state. We are closing the gap,” Bedell said. He said that overall the district is showing growth. “Two years ago we had 54 percent of students performing below basic; now we are at 47 percent.”

Bedell said he is also applauding the district’s performance in other areas.

Two years ago the district’s four-year graduation rate was at 68.7 percent. It is now at 70.9 percent. Bedell said the district is on track to meet the state’s rate of 89.2 percent by 2020.

But the district still struggles with student attendance. KCPS earned 6 of the possible 10 points in the APR for attendance this year. That score mirrors last year’s attendance score. But the district scored well enough in other areas that its overall score improved.

The state expects schools to have 90 percent of it students in class 90 percent of the time. That is a challenge for KCPS because its 40 percent mobility rate is “very high,” Bedell said. Four out of 10 students who start out the year at a school won’t be there at the end of the year.

The district is going to need “help from our families,” said Ray Weikal, a district spokesman. “We know that our families have challenges but the reality is we are asking our families to work with us.”

That last bit is crucial, in a very long winded thread in the pit about Charles Murray -and his ruse to get more airtime that worked with San Harris- the discussion turned to why schools fail and what to fund to deal with that failure. As some extreme solutions I saw showed, it is at least with parents that have kids with educational issues where the aid should go, there is a need to incentivizing the parents of under-performing students to go back to school or get more aid in housing and other moves to improve family and social life, that will also increase the educational levels of our nation. IMHO.

[GIGObuster]

@puddleglum

The way it works is that local funding is uneven toward richer districts and state funding is uneven toward poor districts. Together, most funding ends slightly weighted toward poorer districts but less than $1,000 difference. That is why the federal funds mean that generally poorer districts get more funding. According to an Urban Institute studyonly 3 states have lower per student spending in poorer districts, Illinois, Wyoming, and Nevada, and those differences were small.

That 10% or less of federal funding is still insufficient.

https://1k9gl1yevnfp2lpq1dhrqe17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FundingGapReport_2018_FINAL.pdf

Across the country, the highest poverty districts receive about $1,000, or 7 percent, less per pupil in state and local funding than the lowest poverty districts.

These gaps add up, and there is evidence that closing them can have a lasting impact on student achievement.12

For example, in a district with 5,000 students, that gap means nearly $5 million in missing resources. These funds could be used to pay for supports and services that we know improve academic outcomes for students, such as substantially smaller class sizes in the elementary grades, additional school counselors in the upper grades, or high-quality and integrated professional development for teachers.13

The within-state funding gap analysis shows a great deal of variation among states in the progressiveness — or regressiveness — of funding (Figure 1). In 20 states, the highest poverty districts received at least 5 percent more in state and local funds than the lowest poverty districts. In six states, the highest poverty districts received at least 15 percent more funding per student than the lowest poverty districts. Those states are (in alphabetical order) Georgia, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota, and Utah. At the other end of the spectrum, there are four states where the highest poverty districts received substantially less in state and local funding than their lowest poverty counterparts. The largest gap, by far, continues to be in Illinois, where the highest poverty districts received 22 percent less in state and local funding than the lowest poverty districts.14

Other states with regressive gaps include (in alphabetical order) Alabama, Missouri, and New York. The highest poverty districts in these states received 5 percent to 9 percent less than the lowest poverty districts. In the remaining 23 states, high- and low-poverty districts received similar amounts of state and local funding.

So far, we’ve been looking at whether the funding that high and low-poverty districts receive is equal. **But to close achievement gaps, we need funding that is equitable **— funding that accounts for the fact that it simply costs more to educate students from low-income backgrounds, many of whom start school academically behind their more affluent peers.

To account for these additional needs, we repeated our analysis with the assumption: that it costs a district 40 percent more to educate a student in poverty than not in poverty. This figure is based on the federal Title I formula, and, in all likelihood, is an underestimate. Research shows that it could cost twice as much, or more, to educate a student from a low-income background to the same standards as a student from a more affluent background.16

Nationally, when we account for the additional needs of students from low-income backgrounds,17 we see that the highest poverty districts receive about $2,000, or 16 percent, less per student than low-poverty districts (compared to roughly $1,000 before making this adjustment). And while 20 states appeared to provide substantially more funding to the highest poverty districts before accounting for the additional needs of students from low-income backgrounds, after the adjustment, only seven still do (Figure 2). Moreover, the number of states with regressive funding gaps (i.e., states that provide at least 5 percent less funding to the highest poverty districts) increases from four to 20.

Conclusion

Whether you look at the national numbers or the state-by-state numbers, the pattern is disturbing: in more than half of states, districts with the highest poverty rates do not receive more funding to account for that increased need. And in 14 states, the districts with the most students of color get at least 5 percent less funding than districts with the lowest percentage of students of color. These funding inequities are not new — they have been documented and debated for decades.

But there has been real progress in some states, and we hope this work serves as a tool to help advocates and state leaders continue to identify, assess, and remedy the funding inequities described in this report.

[Urbanredneck]

@Buck_Godot

cite?

I’ll be the “cite”. I actually worked at that school with the fancy swimming pool and such. They put that stuff in to be a “magnet” for white suburban kids. It helped some but didnt address the core issues.

[puddleglum]

@GIGObuster

That 10% or less of federal funding is still insufficient.

https://1k9gl1yevnfp2lpq1dhrqe17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/FundingGapReport_2018_FINAL.pdf

The report you linked to does not measure the effect of federal funds at all. It also labels only one state, Illinois, regressive.
It may well be that schools in poor areas need alot more money, but the truth is they are getting more money already just maybe not enough. The states that devote proportionally more money to poor districts don’t seem to be having great results.

[GIGObuster]

@puddleglum

The report you linked to does not measure the effect of federal funds at all.

That was one of the points, in the previous train wreck discussion, it was clear that many researchers do not look at the effects of the federal funds, because they are not really a big part of the overall funding.

@puddleglum

It also labels only one state, Illinois, regressive.
It may well be that schools in poor areas need alot more money, but the truth is they are getting more money already just maybe not enough. The states that devote proportionally more money to poor districts don’t seem to be having great results.

As pointed before, indeed, not enough. And then there is the part of not helping much the student’s families to stabilize or improve their welfare. That already shows how inadequate the funding is because, as shown in several cases, the family life issue is not supported properly in most districts.

[Eva_Luna]

@puddleglum

The report you linked to does not measure the effect of federal funds at all. It also labels only one state, Illinois, regressive.
It may well be that schools in poor areas need alot more money, but the truth is they are getting more money already just maybe not enough. The states that devote proportionally more money to poor districts don’t seem to be having great results.

Illinois had a ballot referendum some years back that was supposed to be aimed at unlinking school funding from local property taxes by having state government kick in a larger share of school district budgets, but it was worded so poorly and confusingly that I couldn’t figure out what it would actually accomplish, so I voted against it.

[Bookkeeper]

Ontario changed school funding a while ago. The local school portion of property taxes become the “education levy” portion, and was set by and went to the province rather than the local school board. The province then funded local school boards on a per-pupil basis, removing the influence of local tax rates on the schools.