Education Policy, Business and Technology

Most States Not Spending Enough on Neediest School Districts

Route Fifty: Affluent school districts tend to receive bigger financial support in most states, while high-poverty districts struggle to provide adequate funding for students, according to new research from the Albert Shanker Institute and Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

"In general, resources in most states tend to be allocated non-progressively or even regressively,” researchers wrote in the report, titled “The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems.” “That is, higher-poverty districts do not receive more funds—and in some cases receive substantially less—than do lower-poverty districts, even controlling for factors that affect costs, such as regional wage variation, district size, and population density.”

Read article