LATEST RACE TO THE TOP GRANTS GO TO STATES AT BOTTOM ON SCHOOL FUNDING EQUITY
Since 2009, the US Department of Education's (USDOE) Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative has given billions in federal funds to states conditioned on launching various education reforms. The USDOE has awarded these grant funds without regard to how equitably the states fund their schools. States control 90% of all school funding, and successful reform requires adequate resources, especially in districts serving high concentrations of low-income students and students with special needs.
In early December, USDOE announced another round of RTTT grant awards, this time to 16 local school districts or groups of school districts. The 16 award winners will share $400 million to support USDOE school reform priorities.
Once again, the RTTT grant process ignores the key precondition for sustaining any meaningful education reform -- a fair and equitable state school finance system. The winning RTTT districts are in 12 states, all of which have serious deficiencies in the way they fund schools. Some of the districts are in states with the most inequitable school funding in the nation.
Based on data from the 2012 Edition of the National Report Card, "Is School Funding Fair," issued by Education Law Center (ELC), here's how the states with the winning RTTT districts perform on school funding:
- Half of the states earn D's or F's on funding distribution, which measures whether the state allocates more funding to districts with higher concentrations of student poverty. Four states earn D's (Colorado, Florida, New York, Texas), and two states earn F's (Nevada, North Carolina).
- All but three states provide no additional funds to educate students in poverty. In most of these states, the average funding levels of the highest poverty districts are actually lower than levels in the lowest poverty districts. North Carolina, for example, funds districts with no student poverty at an average of $11,111 per pupil while only providing $8,699 to the highest poverty districts.
- Nine states have funding levels that, when adjusted to allow for state to state comparisons, fall below the national average: California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. California and Texas funding levels are $8,897 and $8,862 per pupil, respectively, ranking 42nd and 43rd in the nation.
- Most of the states fail to make the effort to adequately fund their schools. Five states receive F's for fiscal effort: California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Washington. These