Urban School Funding
One of my primary research interests is the difference in funding between urban and suburban school districts, and how this could help to explain some of the differences in child performance. This video from a segment on the Oprah Winfrey show provides a stark illustration of the differences that funding can produce in schools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEczvyM3Boc&feature=related
Related to that is the way that school districts spend their dollars. For the upcoming school year the new Baltimore City school superintendent is planning to radically change the way that school funding is done in the city. Essentially at the moment the central office makes all decisions vis a vis teaching hiring, supplies etc. and principals have about 90/student in discretionary spending. In the new budget those decisions will be transfered to the individual principles and they will have 5500 in funding to spend per student (or more 5500 is the baseline). It will be interesting to see if these changes have an actual positive impact on the schools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEczvyM3Boc&feature=related
Related to that is the way that school districts spend their dollars. For the upcoming school year the new Baltimore City school superintendent is planning to radically change the way that school funding is done in the city. Essentially at the moment the central office makes all decisions vis a vis teaching hiring, supplies etc. and principals have about 90/student in discretionary spending. In the new budget those decisions will be transfered to the individual principles and they will have 5500 in funding to spend per student (or more 5500 is the baseline). It will be interesting to see if these changes have an actual positive impact on the schools.
posted by Shoshana at
12:22 PM
2 Comments:
Wow, that video was very powerful. I grew up in an affluent Chicago suburb, and my high school had a program where we would do after school activities with kids from Harper High School. The goals of the program were similar to the school trade story on Oprah, but I think these kind of things can create frustration if there is no political will to actually do something about the problem.
Shoshana, I was wondering if you have come across anything in your research that appears to work in terms of making schools more equal. I heard that Minneapolis pools the tax base between cities and suburbs so that the funding becomes a collective responsibility. This makes sense to me. What other things can policy-makers do?
My knowledge of Baltimore Public Schools is pretty much limited to Season 4 of The Wire , but it seems like the system is failing. Do you think giving more autonomy to principals will really help, or is it just smoke and mirrors that distract from things that these schools really need?
There have been a few attempts at different sort of funding initiatives to equalize funding (much of it in response to lawsuits. They tend to run into a couple of problems though: a) poor districts tend to need more per/student then rich areas, not just equal and b) parents are more willing to spend money if it's going to their kids school, and aren't as willing to pay higher taxes if it's going to a different school district (see California).
As to Baltimore City, the school system is definitely failing (outside of a couple schools), and something needs to be done. Whether, this is the solution who knows? but it will allow principles to spend the money in the way that they think will best benefit their school, rather then it being based on fixed ratios from the central system. We will see.
(note attempting to answer the first question will probably be a main portion of my thesis)
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