Funding equity in public education across the United States

All around the world, resources that influence how education is resourced vary. In the United States, public sources such as the US News and World Report present the cost per student data for every publicly funded school in the nation.

It is striking to me that the term associated with tax funded dollars, is “revenue”. School systems earn a set amount of money for each student enrolled in their schools at the same time, each year, the end of September. And the revenue generated by each student ranges from $11,000 to as high as $18,500. To keep politics out of this reflection, I have decided not to name the school districts with the highest cost per student, or the lowest. That isn’t the point. What is interesting is that in a school system I noted as generating $18,500 per student from Federal, State, and Local area taxes, the reported expense per student was $16,400.

So, where is the remaining $2,100 going?

I’ve found in most cases that the reported spending per student is lower than the funds generated by tax dollars. And yet, we still see a significant gap between where funds are spent to fund educational programmes that benefit the most fortunate students, and instances where the funding is being used to elevate the quality of the learning opportunities offered, for all students.

The truth is, education is not cheap. The cost of maintaining and running the large buildings that accommodate the thousands of students attending any one campus across the major cities in the United States is huge. Some have incredible resources and facilities that they have added over decades, while there are others that have barely anything at all.

When I first came to teach in the United States in 2008, I walked into my classroom to find a chalkboard and a line of lockers along the wall that were there to store the class-sets of heavy textbooks. I was amazed that in the world’s largest economy, it appeared as though I had stepped into a 1970’s classroom, where students sat in rows, and listened to their teacher.

Not every classroom in the United States has smartboards and high-tech devices, and this is not an attempt to compare what people have. Yet, unfortunately the focus on what we think we need to have might be the very thing that is eating up the thousands of dollars that could be used to bridge inequities in education. To build better supports to empower students and ensure their needs are met.

In my recent travels to the great state of Texas, I interviewed a leader of a large network of schools who told me that funding the International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes they have in every single school across the city comes completely from the State funds and from some of the Federal funds that are allocated to supporting low-income students. She emphasized that she fundraises for many things, but when it comes to the IB, it’s all covered and “the school board has never had to consider whether or not the IB would be funded.” Further, she told me that in the coming year, there were some 30 Million dollars being cut from the budget but offering the IB programme to all students would not be impacted.

I thought this is remarkable, as I have collaborated with colleagues at the IB and community resources to suggest a range of funding sources schools could use to maintain and sometimes even save their IB programmes. In many cases, the IB is only offered to some students and often students and their parents, pay for the IB assessment fees, themselves.

Texas is also known to the IB organization for a number of large independent school networks that ensure the cost of participating in their IB programmes is covered.

So, in other cases, where is the money going? If the IB and offerings like it are considered the highest quality options for students, and more and more schools are committing to expanding access to these programmes, why is it so difficult to find the funding to ensure that the cost of the assessment is not a barrier to an opportunity that will shape the future for a young person who may be the first in their family to attend college and the first to break a cycle of poverty.

Figure 7. Immediate postsecondary enrollment for IB students in Title I public high schools by income and race or ethnicity (Source for national averages: NCES, 20155).

I don’t have the answers and I don’t manage large networks of schools. But I wonder why it is possible for some and not for others. Where are our priorities and what will it take to ensure whether it is an IB school or in a context where the high-quality education opportunities are something else, students have equitable access and the cost is not their barrier or their concern.

Promoting future proof education in the era of influencers

Is it education, or learning?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how education will shift from the traditional paradigm of education for a life of work, to one where we are moving at such a fast rate, young people will not be prepared for more change if they do not develop effective learning strategies or possess active learning skills. Many societies around the world remain certain that what matters most is the formality of becoming educated rather than the capacity each of us has to learn on our own. This certainty is held in place by belief systems and culture that is very challenging to disrupt. And for the sake of the young people we serve, we must think differently about the importance of learning to learn, how we define success, and what we promote as the optimal education foundation for continuous learning. I have Heather McGowan to thank for pushing my thinking in this direction, as I make connections to why the International Baccalaureate and others design learning programmes over discrete courses.

But shifting the thinking requires a lot of unlearning. New perspectives are more difficult to validate and discern because the world we live in and what has changed in terms of what we each believe to be factual and in a content saturated world, ideas based on little evidence have a string of supporting content that is often mistaken as evidence. My former Literature teacher mind wonders if this is what the origins of a dystopian world looks like. Now baseless sentiments, some of which are harmful or dangerous, can become “popular opinion” and cause people to take action. Our communities that are no longer locally restricted or geographically bound. Instead, they form as a cyber-collective or movement of people who are like-minded and consumers of the same medias.

It is easy to put this new normal into a category beyond the concerns we have for education, although critical literacy, learned empathy, intercultural understanding and global competencies are certainly the stuff that can counter some of the crazy we see right in front of us, everyday. I’d like to propose that the new normal makes it more difficult to communicate in every matter of fact. Now that we are constantly email and text message spammed by marketers. But this isn’t just happening in our personal accounts, recently I change something on my LinkedIn profile and suddenly sales teams have located my professional email and are trying to sell me products that have nothing to do with my work…

Why. Not, what

For those thinking differently about their marketing practices, seeking solutions that avoid annoying prospective stakeholders, customers, and clients, like you and I, is fundamental. We see a greater shift from making products and brands visible, to increased effort to engage audiences with techniques built on the why. Smart campaigns group the most attractive features together in a central digital context and then try to place themselves in front of prospects in new and attractive ways.

At the core, new marketing is based on empathy. What to people care about and why? For example, tech companies focus on why this digital watch will streamline your work and everyday activities by making the right choices for you based on your behavioral patterns. Wow - I want that watch! Any feature chosen to be front and center are identified based on market research - which is simply getting to know people and what they need, like, and how they use things. Some leading tech companies have been doing this for a long time because establishing a brand is fundamentally related to the way human beings form habits to enjoy the comfort of what familiar and relatable.

The digital world has made content creation possible for all of us. But what content is worth making? If we don’t consider what we do with the content we make, we will never get the message out there.

The era of influencers

Enter, the influencer, and there is no need to overthink this term. An influencer still is someone who has the power to convince people to do something or buy something. Influencers are one of the ways marketing campaigns are reaching audiences without pushing out advertisements, catalogues, emails, and text messages. Influencers are planted in contexts where prospects are likely to see them, and the algorithms built into our search engines, clicks and likes, and lifting language from the content we post publicly (and in some cases privately - Yes, Google is reading this post and that direct mention will add to the trillions of data points collected and processed by A.I.)

Converting a marketing campaign into a service is exactly what the influencer approach does well to tap into our experiences to attract us. Reflecting on the principles of engagement tied to values, desires, aspiration, and needs could inform the way education providers and institutions communicate the learning opportunities they offer and provide an avenue to shape new attitudes to learning and the purpose and place of education, for the future. It is important that perspectives held by students and their guardians are challenged, so a broader range of factors than the most conventional ones, become tools for choosing a challenging pathway with the most benefits. Today’s students will leverage their learning not only their education and do so, not just for their immediate aspirations for higher-learning, but well into their lives as they navigating evolving industries and inevitable change. Presenting the what of educational pathways only addresses one dimension of what needs to be considered when making these decisions. And students are more conscious of the why, want to know the benefits. They are accustomed to an immersive marketing experience that engages their interests and aspirations.

Shaping attitudes to learning matters for the future

It is worth thinking about how this reality has changed the way we talk about education and communicate the most important benefits. How are K-12 institutions preparing students to pivot, assimilate, adapt, and redirect though the way schools programme to increase students’ awareness of how they learn. For those already there, how might a refreshed communications approach advance stakeholders attitudes to lifelong learning.

What is featured on your school’s digital media platforms, what do stakeholders see first when they land on your website, what does this say about the IB education you offer students, and what happens next?

Advancing access to world class education: IB Language and Literature

IB education has been opening doors to students for more than 50 years. Often regarded as an elite education for students described to be the “most goal oriented”, “academically driven”, or “most capable” , the Diploma Programme has been limited as advanced academics. But for more than two decades, public schools in the United States have been working to open access to any student who would like to participate, and going further, there are schools like Rainer Beach High School in Seattle, Washington and George Marshall High School in Fairfax, Virginia that have adopted the Diploma Programme as the only curriculum offered to students. Schools have shaped students futures, as a result.

This school year, 35 comprehensive public high schools from across the United States are strategically advancing their IB Diploma Programmes in a pilot initiative facilitated by the IB’s new Strategic Initiatives Innovation & Incubation (SIII) department. The project explores a range of enhanced support for schools to conduct the relevant and transformative IB self-study process known to IB schools as, Programme Development. Each school assesses their top barriers for school-wide adoption of the Diploma Programme Language and Literature course. Experienced schools and those exploring the idea for the first time share best practices in synchronic networking sessions and have been appointed an educational consultant to support their planning.

Joseph Obiagwu – Jacksonville, USA

“I found that believing in myself in the face of tough challenges was an obstacle that I had to overcome, and when I listened to people who believed in me, my perception of what I was capable of changed. ”

— Joseph Obiagwu

The project involves enhanced support for school-driven self-study process known to IB schools as Programme Development. Each school assesses the top barriers to school-wide adoption of the Diploma Programme Language and Literature course. Experienced schools and those exploring the idea for the first time share best practices in synchronic networking sessions and have been appointed an educational consultant to support their planning.

The new IB SIII department is collating resources that address priorities, identified by the schools as well as collaboratively with experts across the IB organization and lead educators to develop new resources that increase school readiness to expand the Language and Literature course to every student. The impact is slated to be significant. Among this cohort of schools, more than 11,500 students new will be included in one of the worlds most respected and well designed educational programs. That’s approximately a 67% increase in access to rigorous coursework for many students who may not have seen themselves as capable of participation, in the past.

But the vision does not end there. Just as many public schools across the country have embraced the IB as an opportunity to extend a world class education to every student, many of the schools in this pilot initiative see school-wide adoption of Language and Literature as the first step toward offering IB programmes as the primary curriculum for all courses, for all students. Fresno High School in California dove right into this endeavor, offering the IB Middle Years Programme, Diploma Programme, and the option for students to pursue career and technical education in the IB Career-related Programme. For the IB, the aim of this initiative is to collect, develop, and distribute the successful strategies IB world schools have developed to any school that wishes to join the movement.

Here is what Educators have to say about the benefits of school-wide adoption of IB Language and Literature.