History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Comparable, schmomparable
- 05-26-2010
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Blog by By Raegen Miller/Center for American Progress
Inequity haunts U.S. public school finance. Some federal programs are demonstrably unfair in allocating funds to states, and there prevails in many states a negative relationship between the rate of student poverty in school districts and the amount of per student revenues made available by the state funding formula. There is also reason to believe that the distribution of funds to schools within districts systematically disfavors schools serving the highest concentrations of low-income students. The reason is that funds follow teacher experience. Teacher salary, the largest category of school expenditure, is tightly linked to seniority, which also confers transfer privileges. Teachers tend to exercise these privileges to flee high-poverty schools for ones serving more affluent communities. (more...)
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