Roberta C. FurgerLaura E. HernándezLinda Darling-Hammond
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In 2013, California adopted its Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which has shifted billions of dollars to districts serving high-need students, created a multiple-measure accountability system, and provided all districts with broad flexibility to develop spending plans aligned to local priorities and needs. This report examines LCFF and related reforms—the decade-plus effort leading to their passage and the impact on culture, practice, opportunities, and outcomes—and explores next steps to sustain and deepen improvement. Read the report or brief >
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We live in an era of extreme income inequality and one of the places it’s hitting hardest is in our schools. That’s because inequity is hard-wired into our school-funding systems. Linda Darling-Hammond and Jeff Raikes explain the hard wiring and discuss what we can do to shift direction and ensure that every child receives a quality education.
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The cost for failing to properly invest in a high-quality public education for all children has grave implications for both the students and society at large. A new report shares essential state-level strategies and examples to help policymakers develop equitable and effective school finance systems.
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Creating equitable and adequate school finance systems is a challenging-but-achievable task. It's also an essential one, as the cost of failing to properly invest in high-quality public education for all children impacts not just students but society at large. This new study shares essential state-level strategies and examples to help policymakers develop equitable and effective school finance systems.
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Education has the potential to be the "great equalizer" in society—mitigating the impacts of poverty and race. But that potential has yet to be realized in America. In this Education and the Path to Equity blog, Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director with the New York State Alliance for Quality Education, discussed the progress made in investing in the right of every student to learn well.
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Fifty years ago, in his book, Rich Schools, Poor Schools: The Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity, Arthur Wise noted the glaring inequities in public school funding and suggested that examination by the courts would reveal they were unconstitutional. In his blog, Wise describes advocates’ efforts to redress those wrongs through a judicial strategy, legislatures’ responses to court rulings and judicial orders, where we stand now, and what remains to be done to achieve equal educational opportunity.
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Schools in the United States are among the most inequitably funded of any in the industrialized world. These inequities in funding—which impact everything from class sizes to course offerings to teaching quality—create dramatic disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes for children. Students from low-income families and students of color experience the greatest disparities.
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This brief is based on a report reviewing research on the role of money in determining school quality. The research found that schooling resources that cost money are positively associated with student outcomes. In addition to summarizing the report, the brief offers these policy recommendations: Ensure school finance reforms are linked to thoughtful standards and supports for students and teachers, invest more in students who have greater needs, and invest in human resources.
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Fifty years after the Kerner Commission warned of a nation divided, school funding remains profoundly unfair and inequitable in most states, shortchanging students across the country, writes David Sciarra, Executive Director of the Education Law Center in this installment of the blog series, Education and the Path to Equity. Those most disadvantaged by this enduring failure are millions of children from low-income families and children of color, especially those in high-poverty, racially isolated communities.
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Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” the President’s 2018 education budget proposal feels like déjà vu all over again. Last year, we published a blog post that addressed the President’s proposed cuts to the Every Student Succeeds Act. Fortunately, the Congress that developed the Act and passed it in a strongly bipartisan vote in 2015 protected its key features. This year, in the President’s new budget proposal, however, those cuts are back.
