Equity in funding...

We've been reading a lot about equity in education recently. My professional experience doesn't led itself to that topic readily. Working for (what was) an online master's degree, the biggest equity issue would be cost. And whenever I think about education and cost, I remember where I learned science in high school. Biology was in one room; chemistry was in another. But both rooms had something in common: a pot belly stove for heat.

In 1989, the year after I graduated high school, the Kentucky Supreme Court case declared the method by which K12 education was funded to be unconstitutional. The case (largely) involved poorer districts from eastern Kentucky (which I went to high school) suing the state over equity issues involving school funding. Basically, school's were funded by property tax. Property taxes yielded much more income for schools in Jefferson and Fayette Counties, but not nearly as much in counties like Floyd and Letcher. For example, at the time a school district (the richest at the time) in Jefferson County was spending $3,186 per pupil while a school district in Elliot County (the poorest at the time) was only able to spend $118. The case resulted in the legislature guaranteeing a minimum per pupil dollar amount that districts could then supplement. According to recent reports, while this reallocation was initially very beneficial, the initial problem of richer districts outspending their poorer counterparts has slowly reasserted itself.

And this problem is not unique to Kentucky by any means. A recent NPR report found per pupil spending lows of $9,700 to $28,000 variance across the country (Note that the dollars are normalized adjusting for regional differences.) Again, the underlying issue is the mechanism by which many districts receive roughly half of their funding - local taxes. Rural and poorer districts just cannot compete with the wealthier parts of the country. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court for now at least, has taken the federal government out of the picture for possible remedy. The 5-4 ruling in San Antonio Independent School District vs. Rodriguez declared the Constitution had no requirement for equitable funding for education. A 5-4 decision in the other direction could have helped address some of the variance in funding we see across the country.

For now, school districts are left to fight funding battles at the state level. And that couldn't happen at a worse time as state funding for education (K12 as well as higher ed) has been steadily decreasing. According to the the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state funding to K12 dropped approximately $600 per student from 2008 to 2014.

See also: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-more-money-fix-americas-schools