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.