Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Jack Reed (RI) and OH Rep. Marcia Fudge Introduce Bill to Equalize School Resources
As a citizen of Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, I am proud to congratulate and thank our Senator Sherrod Brown and my Congressional Representative Marcia Fudge for stepping out to provide leadership in the struggle to equalize educational opportunity. For too long Congress has gone along with the conventional wisdom that has demanded accountability for educational outcomes—higher test scores—without demanding that states equalize provision of the resources necessary to support students and teachers in school districts where poverty is concentrated and schools lack adequate programs and support for children.
For too long it has merely been accepted that the public schools in the poorest neighborhoods of our big cities where poverty is highly concentrated must be shaped up not through the kind of investment the rest of us take for granted, but instead by punishing them and their teachers for failure. The editorial board of the Rethinking Schools magazine has decried this sort of thinking by declaring that school “reform”based on ranking schools by high stakes tests disguises class and race-based privilege as merit. Wealthy and homogeneous suburban school districts—able to fund themselves by taxing their own property wealth—thrive, while schools in big cities are closed and privatized at the same time they are being starved of funds by their state legislatures.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has joined Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed to co-sponsor the Core Opportunity Resources for Equity and Excellence (CORE) Act in the Senate. Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge has introduced companion legislation in the House. Introduction of the CORE Act will require Congress to discuss and consider the necessity of closing opportunity gaps as a first step to closing test-score achievement gaps. According to the press release describing the bill: “The bill aims to tackle existing disparities in public education by establishing accountability requirements that compel states and school districts to give all Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Jack Reed (RI) and OH Rep. Marcia Fudge Introduce Bill to Equalize School Resources | janresseger:
