Poverty rates in every U.S. school district, in one map
Anyone who cares about the plight of poor children in America should take a look at a new interactive map, below, put together by the new nonprofit EdBuild.
The map shows Census Bureau poverty rates in each of the nation’s nearly 14,000 school districts nationwide. The darker the blue on the map, the greater the concentration of children living in poverty. It seems like the kind of map that should have been easy to find long ago — but it hasn’t been, at least not in the public realm.
Zoom out, and you can see macro-level concentrations of poverty and wealth, like the dark blue swaths of impoverished districts along the Mississippi River in the Deep South and in rural parts of the West. Zoom in, and you see how school district boundaries often serve as stark lines of division between the poor and the affluent.
This map, from EdBuild, shows Census Bureau poverty rates in each of the nation’s nearly 14,000 school districts nationwide. Click here to go to the interactive version on EdBuild’s Web site.
EdBuild founder Rebecca Sibilia says that the map should serve as a wake-up call that gerrymandering is as much a problem for kids in public schools as it is for voters. The difference is that boundaries are drawn to contain poor families rather than to favor a certain political party, she said.
Take Camden, N.J., pictured below. More than 45 percent of Camden’s 16,000 students live in poverty. Within a five-mile radius of the city center, there are 32 other small school districts that each serve a wealthier population.
Or look at Birmingham, Ala., a district in which more than 40 percent of children live in poverty. The impoverished district, in dark blue in the map below, includes islands marooned within more affluent suburbs.
EdBuild published the map to highlight inequitable school funding across the country. Fixing that problem is the main aim for the new nonprofit, says Sibilia, an alumna of StudentsFirst, the lobbying organization founded by Michelle Rhee. Sibilia is also a veteran of the Rhee era of reform in the District; she was chief financial officer of the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education during Rhee’s tenure as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools.
Below is an interview with Sibilia, edited for length and clarity.
Why did you start EdBuild? What are you trying to do?
We’re really focused on what we believe to be the core structural challenges to moving forward with a modern, 21st Century delivery of education. We’re in a position where we have blended learning and iPads in the classroom, but we’re still funding our schools using formulas from 1986. It’s a crazy mismatch.
There are three core issues:
First, the amount of funding that is being provided on a student-by-student basis to the same schools, to students with the same needs, is wildly arbitrary. Take Ohio: The state funding formula spits out $5,000 more per pupil for kids in Toledo than those in Canton, despite very similar demographics.
The second problem really relates to the core focus of what we tried to get at with the map, which is our over-reliance on property taxes to Poverty rates in every U.S. school district, in one map - The Washington Post:
EdBuild is grateful for the following partners and donors that make our work possible:
