Education - Equity Briefing

By Sean Brandon , Assistant Executive Director | 4 years ago

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed glaring disparities in educational resources between school districts. These disparities are a statewide problem, but we can easily see them within the counties we live and sometimes, in cases like mine, between the school districts we represent. 

The table, linked here, displays some figures by school district that I have found lead to productive conversations with constituents and stakeholders. These metrics are components of the bipartisan basic education fair funding formula. They showcase the vast differences in the ability to raise revenue at the local level, the relative local tax burden, and the resulting spending disparities. The solution to these inequities is to increase state funding for all school districts and prioritize new funding for historically disadvantaged school districts. 

Lastly, it is important to understand the reasoning behind using “weighted” student figures. Comparing per student spending across school districts does not account for the higher costs to educate certain students, such as those living in poverty or learning English as a second language. These higher-cost students are not distributed evenly among districts, which is why using weighted figures allows for a more apples-to-apples comparison.