Shortchanging K-12 Schools

A big reason why I think our traditional school system is broken and can’t be fixed deals with the equity issue, especially when it comes to black, brown, and poor young learners.

A new report, focused on federal funding sources for K-12 campuses, supports my claim that schools have become highly inequitable places. The report, published by the Economic Policy Institute and authored by Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist and research associate, Elaine Weiss, research associate, both from the Economic Policy Institute, and Emma Garcia, senior researcher for the Learning Policy Institute, arrived at a few key findings:

• “High-poverty districts frequently get fewer dollars per student than low-poverty districts.”
• “Economic downturns like the Great Recession in the late 2000’s magnified those gaps.”
• “Many states fail to cover districts whose local funding falls well short of adequacy.”

The research, as reported by EducationWeek in a recent news article, focuses on seven ways the U.S. government shortchanges our K-12 schools. Those seven include:

Students with disabilities

According to the article, “The Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act mandates schools to provide an educational experience for students with disabilities that’s equivalent to the one all other student receive. That often means schools have to invest substantial sums of money to hire specialized workers, construct suitable learning spaces, or even fully or partially pay for students’ tuition for off-site programs.”

High-need students

EducationWeek reports that “Title I is the main federal program for public education, funded at $17 billion this year, that aims to offer funds to school districts with large proportions of students from poor families, as defined by federal poverty level. But researchers have argued that many of the dense formulas that make up the program end up funneling inadequate amounts of money to the schools and students that need it the most.”

School facilities and infrastructure

The article states “There are no laws requiring the federal government to provide funds for school facilities. But the nation’s school buildings and surrounding infrastructure, including broadband connections, are woefully out of date, and many are unsafe for students and staff. The nation’s schools collectively require nearly $195 billion dollars each year for maintenance and upgrades, according to a 2021 report by several facilities research and advocacy groups, but spending annually falls $85 billion short of that goal.

School meals

EducationWeek reports “During the pandemic, the federal government for the first time extended the option for all schools to offer free meals to all students, rather than charging some families based on their income. Nine in 10 schools took the government up on that offer – but late last month, it expired. A recent bipartisan bill passed by Congress renewed the higher-than-usual federal reimbursement for school meals that came about during the pandemic, but failed to extend universal school meals past this summer.

English-language learners

When it comes to English-language learners, “The number of student who need help becoming fluent in English alongside their regular instruction has grown steadily during the 21^st century, from 3.7 million in 2000 to nearly 5 million in the late 2010’s, according to federal data.

Federal funding to support those students hasn’t caught up. In fact, the federal government appropriated more money for the Title III funding program for English-language learners in fiscal year 2010 than in 2019 – despite the growth of the student population and significant inflation of costs in the intervening years.”

Schools on federally owned land

According to the article “Districts on military bases and Native American reservations don’t have the capacity to generate revenue through property taxes like the vast majority of the nation’s local school districts. Some districts sit entirely on federal land, while others encompass both federal and private land.

The federal Impact Aid program emerged in 1950 under President Harry Truman to make up the difference in funding for districts that lack access to a tax base of any sort.

But since the Vietnam War, the Impact Aid program has only received up to 60 percent of what would be necessary to adequately fund all the districts who receive it.”

Students experiencing homelessness

“All schools are required to comply with the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which mandates districts to transport students experiencing homelessness to and from their school of origin, waive paperwork requirements for families who might not have all the required documentation, and to partner with outside organizations to support students who lack a stable place to live.

With the number of students experiencing homelessness at an all-time high, those services aren’t cheap.

The federal government supplied $800 million in emergency assistance to support students experiencing homelessness as part of the American Rescue Plan. But one those funds dry up, schools will have to turn to other sources to extend or deepen those services.”

Federal influence over our public schools started to wane at the end of Obama’s second term of office. Like so many other “American” issues, state and local decision-makers began to set their own public school agendas, with no focus on equity. Like other challenges, the lack of a “national expectation” has allowed a tremendous amount of increased inequity to occur over the past 10 years among states and local school districts.

If the federal government isn’t the one who can and will provide equity for our young learners, then who will it be? Surely, based on their recent action involving COVID-19 policies, critical race theory, or library censorship practices, we can’t depend on individual states or local school boards to provide equitable opportunity to our young learners and their families, especially those who are black, brown, and poor. It seems like our “United States of America” has turned into our “50 States of America.”

What do you do when a tired, old system is broken, and those who you’ve looked to in the past can’t fix it?

You create a new system.

Til tomorrow. SVB