Dive Brief:

• Ensuring that schools with a large number of low-income students get adequate and equitable resources improves test scores and graduation rates, according to a new research brief from the Learning Policy Institute. The brief refutes a long-held argument that dollars don't make a difference in student outcomes. 
• Researchers found that a 21.7% increase in per-pupil spending throughout all 12 years of school eliminated the educational attainment gap between children from low-income and non-poor families, and raised graduation rates for low-income children by 20 percentage points. 
• Policy recommendations for state lawmakers in the report include finance reforms linked to thoughtful standards and supports for teachers and students, greater investment in students who have greater needs, and prioritizing teacher quality when deciding where to spend money. 

Dive Insight:

Inequities in school funding throughout the U.S. impact everything from class size to course selection to teacher expertise. Those inequities create clear disparities in educational outcomes for students. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that when public schools are forced to spend more on low-income students, those students do better in school. 

While there has been considerable improvement over the years — the poorest schools are not seeing 30 to 40 pupils per class and zero extracurricular opportunities the way they were in the 1970s and '80s — a new federal analysis revealed that states have taken a step backwards. It brought to light that 25% of the poorest schools in the country received 3.4% less in per pupil spending than 25% of the wealthiest school districts. In Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia, high-need districts received less funding than wealthier ones.

Some experts speculate that the results of the study, which were based on the 2014-15 school year, reflect the lingering impact of the 2008 recession on states' ability to fund poor schools, and that some signs already point to the situation improving. When local, state, and federal funding is taken together, most school districts with a higher percentage of low-income students get more money than others — in some cases, 20% more.

But the reality isn't so cut and dry. That's largely due to the outsized impact of local funds driven by property taxes. Wealthier districts, which extract higher property taxes on higher-value homes and businesses, have more money to spend per pupil — in some cases, vastly more (One need only look at Bridgeport versus Westport, only 12 miles apart in Connecticut). The U.S. is one of the only nations that permits the disparate economies of localities to dictate the quality of the schools. Changing that, though, as Connecticut, California, and other states have found, proves quite challenging politically. Parents often buy a house at a premium because of the "good" school district their property taxes will fund, and tend to resist any changes that may threaten that "investment." 

On the horizon, though, is the Every Student Succeeds Act school transparency mandate. By December 2019, schools will have to disclose how they spend their money. Although as of now there is some uncertainty as to the parameters and presentation of the data, the goal is that by fully exposing inequities, the causes and potential fixes will be more clear.