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School Funding

Disparity in School Funding; Causes, Effects, and Solutions

Shellie Sims

Education 612

Dr. Margot Fadool

Agnes Scott College

Observation/Setting

In my observations at Cross Keys High School in Dekalb County, it has been evident that insufficient funding has been an issue of great importance. More than 80 % of this school’s population is composed of minority students from a lower-economic class. In fact, many of these students are recent immigrants, speaking English as a second language. Because the conditions of facilities and/or programs available to students are not necessarily comparable to those of schools populated by students from affluent families and/or student populations with lower ratios of minority students, I began to wonder why funding is a problem at schools like Cross Keys HS and less of a problem at other schools.

While reading the student-written, school paper at Cross Keys, I noticed an article naming things that students disliked about their school. Two of the items mentioned included not enough funding available for field trips and stinky bathrooms. While this school seems to be kept as clean as possible, it is definitely not new, and there are terrible plumbing problems that leave bathrooms on certain halls closed for days. Cross Keys does not have enough money for a lot of things from One-Act play to the promised additional art teacher for the successful and overcrowded art program. Due to a lack of funds, teachers are often asked to teach classes that they were not hired to teach. For example, one teacher, hired as the gifted teacher, teaches only one gifted class and constantly has new classes tossed her way. At the beginning of this year she had to come up with last minute lesson plans for a health class which she had never even dreamed of teaching in twenty-years of experience.

Explanation of Appropriate State or National Standards

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards:

The fundamental requirements for proficient teaching include:

  • A broad grounding in the liberal arts and sciences
  • Knowledge of the subjects to be taught, of the skills to be developed, and of the curricular arrangements and materials that organize and embody that content
  • Knowledge of general and subject-specific methods for teaching and for evaluating student learning
  • Knowledge of students and human development
  • Skills in effectively teaching students from racially, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse backgrounds
  • Skills, capacities and dispositions to employ such knowledge wisely in the interest of students

The National Standards for Art Education:

Students should know and be able to do the following by the time they have completed secondary school:

  • They should be able to communicate at a basic level in the four arts disciplines—dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts. This includes knowledge and skills in the use of the basic vocabularies, materials, tools, techniques, and intellectual methods of each arts discipline.
  • They should be able to communicate proficiently in at least one art form, including the ability to define and solve artistic problems with insight, reason, and technical proficiency.
  • They should be able to develop and present basic analyses of works of art from structural, historical, and cultural perspectives, and from combinations of those perspectives. This includes the ability to understand and evaluate work in the various arts disciplines.
  • They should have an informed acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods, and a basic understanding of historical development in the arts disciplines, across the arts as a whole, and within cultures.
  • They should be able to relate various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts disciplines. This includes mixing and matching competencies and understandings in art-making, history and culture, and analysis in any arts-related project.

National Health Education Standards for Students:

  • Standard #1: Students will comprehend concepts related to health promotion and disease prevention

International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English:

  • Standard #11: Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Connections to National Standards

Many teachers in under-funded schools do not meet the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards because many of the teachers in poor schools are substitute teachers who have been brought in as long term teachers due to funding issues or lack of pay as incentive to attract good, qualified, certified teachers. This year, a third-grade class in DeKalb County went five weeks without a teacher because school officials hoped to fill the position with a transfer instead of a new hire.

Because arts funding has been cut to ribbons, The National Standards for Art Education are not met because there simply are not, or are too few, of these programs in poorer schools. Cross Keys High has a very reputable art program conducted by only one art teacher. These classes are overcrowded and in need of an additional instructor in the department.

National Health Education Standards for Students are not met when teachers who are not qualified to teach this class have it “dumped” in their lap. This often happens with gifted teachers who do not have enough students meeting the requirements for this program (this actually happened last semester at a school in which I was observing), and with coaches who have not been properly trained to teach this class (this happened to me in the seventh grade). It is also hard to imagine that students will “comprehend concepts related to health promotion and disease prevention” (se Standard #1 of NHESS above) when they are attending school such unsanitary environments as the facilities discussed in in Kozol’s book Savage Inequalities (mentioned later). Finally, students cannot participate in “literary communities” to which they have never been exposed.

Abstract

Our nations schools are currently in financial upheaval due to several factors including an economic recession, severe budget cuts, and the spiraling effects of the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act. While all of this financial chaos occurs, the gap in money allocated to various schools within districts has become wider. Studies have revealed that schools largely attended by students of lower socio-economic and/or minority status backgrounds receive significantly less funding than schools attended by more affluent, mostly Caucasian, children (Kozol, 1991). This research paper will discuss funding problems, some of the reasons behind these problems, direct effects of the financial gaps in money allocation, and even some of the proven solutions for the current state of our poorer schools in this country.

The Gap

According to recent reports by an Education Trust based in Washington, “the gap in schoolfunding between wealthy and poor districts is growing in most states, a striking reversal of progress made during better economic times” (Sack, 2004). This study looked at funding from state and local budgets; most of the funds that schools receive come to schools from these budgets. Report findings surmised that districts in high-poverty areas in 25 states received less money from state and local sources than their wealthier counterparts. Additionally, 31 states were found to have spending gaps for their high-minority districts. Thirty-six states were found to have funding gaps. This study used data from the U.S. Census and Department of Education in the 2001-02 schoolyear, which is currently the most recent information available. The average gap is now wider than before the recent recession began. Though these results are disappointing, Ross Wiener, the policy director for the Education Trust, was not surprised by the results. He told reporters "when state budgets are tight, the highest-poverty districts tend to lose out the most" (Sack, 2004). Because ninety percent of schools' money comes from their states and school districts, poor areas equal poor schools. One might think that the government would do more to promote equality among school districts.

Gaps around the country are astounding; “in 1989, Chicago spent some $5,500 for each student in its secondary schools… compared to an investment of $8500 to $9000… in the highest spending suburbs to the north” (Kozol, 1991).

In 1987, New York’s gap was of as large as $9,500 per child, (Kozol, 1991) which translated into a difference of $65,375 between wealthy and poor school districts (NEA Website, 2004). In Virginia, the totals were $572,000 between elementary schools (NEA Website, 2004). In one New York, the difference of available funds between two elementary schools of the same size added up to just over $1 million (NEA Website, 2004). New York and Illinois cited gaps of more than $2,000 per pupil in each state (NEA Website, 2004). Following closely is Virginia, with $1,105(NEA Website, 2004). Because each state’s future depends on its workforce, it seems impractical to have this great divide in financing its schools.

An Adequate Education

Most state constitutions guarantee an “adequate education for each student.” Although language varies, most state constitutions require the state to maintain a thorough and efficient or suitable educational system…at no charge, an education that is adequate” (Imber, 2004). Unfortunately there is no clear bottom-line definition of what an “adequate” education is, although, the blame for inadequacy is said to be due to insufficient funding for the education of some or all of the pupils in a state.

Nebraska states that an “adequate” education includes a “highly qualified and competitively paid teaching staff in each classroom, and adequate facilities and support services to help every child meet achievement standards” (NEA Today Staff, 2003). However, the Supreme Court ruled “that a state funding system that provides significantly more money per pupil to some school districts than others does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution” in the 1973 Texas lawsuit of San Antonio v. Rodriguez (Imber, 2004). Findings in this case concluded that education is not a federal constitutional right and that funding school budgets from property tax is a rational way of creating school budgets, even if these budgets are not equal to those of neighboring districts.

Statewide testing has been used as a measure for an adequate education in several states and has cited that legislatures are not providing a sufficient education for everyone. By these standards, a 2002 study commissioned by Kansas’ legislature reported that nearly 40% of what the state needed to provide an “adequate” education for each of their children was lacking (USA Today Staff, 2004). Due to these issues, there have been lawsuits in several states due to “inadequate” education.

The Lawsuits

Education reformers have been suing state governments over school funding issues for more than three decade. Most of the early and some of the current school finance litigation deals with the issue of equity, claiming that state funding favors some school districts or pupils over others. For example, in North Carolina, the state is being sued for an increase in school funding, by a student’s parents. This lawsuit has been going on for the past ten years. The state court’s decision could have a multi-million-dollar impact on the state budget and perhaps legal proceedings in other states.

At least 25 states are currently involved in lawsuits in which poorer school districts seek financial equality to that of wealthier public schools. “Poor school districts that bring these suits have won roughly 70% of the time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures” (USA Today Staff, 2004). An example of this would be a case in which the southwest Kansas town of Liberal, which struggles to educate for each of its students on approximately $5700, brought to the courts attention that less than 100 miles northeast an affluent school spends an average of $17,000 per child. As a result, a state judge found Kansas’ school-funding system” irrational, in violation of the state constitution” (USA Today Staff, 2004). Typically, plaintiffs use court cases to “force the legislature to modify their state’s education finance system to make more money available to some or all of its school districts” (Imber, ASBJ). Unfortunately this is the legislature’s job; the courts are now being used to determine “adequate” educational status.

Funding Problems

States are struggling with the worst budget shortages since World War II. Due to these shortages of funding, many schools have had to cut backon instruction time or lay off quality teachers and school staff. In order to save programs and provide adequate teacher salaries, parents and students are holding bake sales and fund raisers around the country. Unfortunately, state lawmakers say they'll have a hard time finding the money to increase funding in schools because they're already expecting additional budget shortages.

Not all schools are in the same kind of financial crisis as others however. For some, a budget shortfall might mean not buying perk items while other schools are in dire straights. “In most states, the wealthiest districts are able to spend three or four times as much per pupil as the poorest districts – in some states, they spend up to 10 times more” (Imber, 2004) This disparity in funding makes a big difference when money gets tight.

Because “most public schools in the United States depend for their initial funding on a tax on local property… the property tax is the decisive force in shaping inequality” (Kozol, 1991). Affluent areas accrue more funding for their schools and to add insult to injury, legal loopholes increase the damage to areas in which the property tax base is low. Unincorporated towns have been formed in to provide tax shelters and breaks for large manufacturing companies built in poor areas. Tax deductions and mortgage interest deductions are also treated as a kind of federal subsidy. “In some cities, according to Jonathan Wilson, a former chairman of the council of Urban Boards of Education, 30 % or more of the potential tax base is exempt from taxes as compared to as little as 3% in adjacent suburbs” (Kozol, 1991). Additionally, very poor communities often consider education to beof utmost importance and to compensate for low funds, tax themselves at a higher rate than more affluent school districts.

Public expenditures, such as hospitals, police forces and firemen compete with school funding. In areas with high crime and fire rates, this compounds the need for funds. Teachers’ salaries are typically lower in poor areas and therefore the teacher turnover rate increases. In 1990 a teacher in East St. Louis earned $38,000 after teaching for thirty years while an educator of similar background teaching “across the river” in St. Louis made $47,000 and teachers in Chicago were earning $60,000 (Kozol, 1991). Often the only solution is to hire long-term substitute teachers in poor area schools.

Inadequate facilities

Some schools around the nation are so poor that facilities are disgraceful. As a result, rallies for change have cropped up around the country. In May 2004, the NAACP led a march in Columbia, SC with advocates, such as Pat Conroy, a previous teacher and author of books about the inequalities in educational facilities in the south, demanding more school aid for rural school districts in the state in which funding was so low that many of the schools would “almost break your heart to see the conditions of the schools, not only the buildings, but the lack of resources [and] the lack of materials”(Alan, 2004). In some New York schools equal numbers of computers were given to various schools without considering the student populations in each school. The result was drastically fewer computers per ratio of children in poorer schools.

A football team at an East St. Louis school had nine-year-old football jerseys, no goal posts, and no washing machine in which to launder their uniforms. Sewage problems seem to be a common complaint at older facilities around the country. Slow readers “are taught from 15 year-old textbooks… there are no science labs, no art or music teachers… no playground… no swings… no jungle gym. Soap, paper towels and toilet paper are in short supply” (Kozol, 1991). Due to budget cuts, poor facilities and materials and the lack of properly trained teachers, “a diploma from a ghetto high school doesn’t count for much in the United States today” (Kozol, 1991).

Regarding the impact of the “No Child Left Behind” Act

The federal No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in January 2002, will make it impossible for the nation’s public schools to meet its strict federal demands if vital school services continue to be cut around the country. NCLB has forced states to use federal dollars that were previously earmarked for programs such as Title I. Because the No Child Left Behind Act gives additional monetary supplements to states that have the most efficient funding systems, the states that need aid the most are missing out; many of which are the most populous states with the widest funding gaps between wealthy and poor school districts.