Anatomy of Educational Inequality & Why School Funding Matters

Posted on September 13, 2014
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Figure 1 – Geographic Distribution of Children & Money in Illinois
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There continues to be much bluster out there in ed reformy land that money really isn’t all that important – especially for traditional public school districts. That local public schools and districts already have way too much money but use it so inefficiently that any additional dollar would necessarily be wasted. An extension of this line of reasoning is that therefore differences in spending across districts are also inconsequential. It really doesn’t matter – the reformy line of thinking goes – if the suburbs around Philly, Chicago or New York dramatically outspend them, as long as some a-contextual, poorly documented and often flat out wrong, blustery statement can be made about a seemingly large aggregate or per pupil spending figure that the average person on the street should simply find offensive.
Much of this bluster about the irrelevance of funding is strangely juxtaposed with arguments that inequity of teacher quality and the adequacy of the quality of the teacher workforce are the major threats to our education system. But of course, these threats have little or nothing to do with money? Right? As I’ve explained previously – equitable distribution of quality teaching requires equitable (not necessarily equal) distribution of resources. Districts serving more needy student populations require smaller classes and more intensive supports if their students are expected to close the gap with their more advantaged peers – or strive for common outcome goals. Even recruiting similarly qualified teachers in higher need settings requires higher, not the same or lower compensation. Districts serving high need populations require a) more staff – more specialized, more diverse and even more of the same (core classroom teacher) staff, of b) at least equal qualifications. That means they need more money (than their more advantaged neighbors) to get the job done. If they so happen to have substantially less money, it’s not a matter of simply trading off those lower class sizes for higher salaries or vice versa. If you have neither, you can’t do Anatomy of Educational Inequality & Why School Funding Matters | School Finance 101: