Study says poor districts get less funding
In most states, school districts with the most low-income students or the most minority students get the least public funding, a new report by the Education Trust, a Washington D.C.-based education think tank, says. But Ohio and Kentucky in recent years are reversing that trend. School districts across the country spent on average $938 less per pupil at high-poverty school districts than at low-poverty districts in 2005, the most recent year studied. The funding gap has widened since 1999, according to EdTrust. Similarly, high-minority school districts were funded at $877 less per pupil than districts with few or no minorities. That funding gap narrowed since 1999, the report found. “Many of the school districts with the greatest needs often receive the least funding, begging the question of whether we’re setting some students up for failure,” wrote Carmen Arroyo, EdTrust research director. In 1999, Ohio’s high-poverty public school districts received $77 less per pupil than the state’s wealthiest school districts. But by 2005, the state’s taxpayers were spending $833 more per pupil at high-poverty districts than at wealthy districts, the study shows. “This does not say you don’t have a problem in terms of poor kids.… It says you’ve made some progress,” said Paolo DeMaria, Ohio’s associate superintendent of finance. Ohio’s school funding system has been found to be unconstitutional, in part because it relies on local property taxes, producing great disparities. Kentucky in 1999 spent $801 more per student in high-poverty districts than in affluent districts. By 2005 it improved that to $878 more per impoverished student. The state also wiped out its gap affecting high-minority schools. Kentucky in 1999 spent about $162 less per pupil in high-minority districts than in low-minority districts. By 2005, Kentucky pupils in heavily minority districts had a $44 advantage over students in low-minority districts. Arroyo said anything below a $200 difference doesn’t qualify as closing the funding gap. “We think (Kentucky’s) funding formula is equitable,” said Lisa Gross, Kentucky’s education cabinet spokeswoman. “The problem with the funding formula is that there’s not enough funding in the formula. Our state funding per pupil has not kept up with inflation.”
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/17/08, By Denise Smith Amos
[Editor’s Note: The study is below.]
Education Trust study