The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Solving our persistent school funding crisis
American public schools average over $12,000 a year per student spent on K-12 funding — the fifth-highest total among the 38 generally affluent nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. However, compared to most industrialized nations, U.S. public-school funding is one of the most inequitable.
Many Americans appear troubled about this issue. For nearly two decades, when answering an open-ended survey question about the most significant problem their local schools encounter, Americans cited insufficient funding. A century ago, that was hardly the case.
Schooling for us and them
In the 1920s, political leaders believed it was necessary that whites remain residentially separate from poor, racial and ethnic groups. Support for this policy was particularly apparent in a city like Chicago, where following the Great Migration of southern Blacks, there were many incidents of racial violence that frightened white inhabitants.
The Chicago Real Estate Board responded by advocating racially restrictive covenants among homeowners, forbidding racial/ethnic minorities from moving into their areas. The agreements became a source of civil pride. A local newspaper triumphantly declared that the covenants “stretched “like a marvelously woven chain of armor” from ‘the northern gates of Hyde Park … [to] all the farflung white communities of the South Side.’” Since the U.S., unlike most other affluent nations, determines children’s access to public schools based on where they live, racial/ethnic segregation of schooling in these locales was assured.
Then in the 1930s, the federal government took a decisive step that further solidified racial/ ethnic school segregation. A practice called redlining involves marking in red on maps the residential areas believed too risky for government-backed home loans. Officials used race, income and other demographic factors to designate redlined areas.
Throughout the U.S., bankers accepted the recommendations, further restricting racial/ethnic minorities’ access to home loans allowing them to move into more affluent school districts. Those disadvantages persist. Recent research has revealed the stark fact that across the nation school districts where most students are people of color receive $23 billion less than those where the majority are white. That means the average nonwhite student receives about $2,200 less school funding than a white counterpart. Minority students living in wealthy states usually aren’t better off. In Connecticut, for example, the difference in school funding for districts where 75 percent of the students are people of color compared to those that are 75 percent white is $2,300 per child.
A frontal attack
Using Connecticut as an example, two urban educators have cited measures to compensate for reduced school funding. First, because of historic discrimination, Black children in Connecticut live in families with considerably less taxable income than whites, restricting the state’s contribution to their school funding. The researchers concluded that promoting equality involves making up the difference — nearly $1,600 per child.
Second, Black-owned homes in the state are worth on average $250,000 compared to over $420,000 for whites’. Local districts in Connecticut perversely compensate for racial/ethnic minorities’ lower property-tax payments by assessing them at a higher rate. The researchers indicate that these homeowners should receive a rebate for what they label the discriminatory “Black Tax” — slightly over $1,800 for a residence valued at $250,000.
Like American public school funding overall, the Black Tax materialized with little publicity in a political system that affluent whites controlled. To reform this destructive system requires the opposite — an aroused, even furious public presence. As Paul F. Cummins, an activist educator/writer, has said, money can’t eliminate all educational inequities, but “very few … can be solved without increased dollars.”
Following the lead of other affluent nations, the U.S. sorely needs what Cummins called “a new trinity for educational support,” establishing a financial priority that is fair, national and committed to the long haul. He proposed a sharply accelerated $40,000 per year allotted per student and asserted that diverse citizen groups must become deeply involved, demanding that “various foundations, bipartisan Congressional committees, unions, corporate leaders and think-tank scholars … accept this funding goal.” It would be a promising start.