School funding disparities and the plight of Latinx children

Abstract

This article provides a systematic decomposition of disparities in school funding by race and ethnicity using two new data resources. First, we use a national district level panel of data from the School Finance Indicators Database to evaluate recent (2012 – 2017) disparities in school revenue and spending by race in addition to poverty, across and within all states and within selected states. Next, we use data from the National Education Cost Model (NECM) to evaluate disparities in spending against estimates of “costs” of achieving national average student outcomes to determine racial differences in gaps between current spending and costs of equitable outcomes. As Latinx shares increase, per pupil spending and revenue decrease, respectively by about 4% to 7% for districts that are approximately 100% Latinx compared to those that have few or no Latinx students, controlling for poverty. More striking, when controlling for poverty, a district that is 100% Latinx is nearly 2.5 times as likely as a district that is 0% Latinx to be financially disadvantaged (have revenue 90% of labor market average, and poverty greater than 120%), when controlling for poverty and 28.5 times as likely when not controlling for poverty. Finally, spending is less adequate to achieve national average outcomes, across states, in districts serving larger shares of Latinx students.

Pathways to Inequality: Between-District Segregation and Racial Disparities in School District Expenditures

“…Our primary source of data is the School Funding Fairness Data System (SFFDS), a compilation of longitudinal federal data sources that provides measures of school district finance and demographics over time (Baker, Srikanth, & Weber, 2016). We specifically make use of the Local Education Agency (LEA) Fiscal Database (Version 1.0) provided in the SFFDS.…”

The Curious Case of the Missing Tail: Trends Among the Top 1% of School Districts in the United States, 2000–2015

“…As Darling-Hammond (2013) points out, funding disparities may actually equalize educational opportunity when they reflect differences in student needs. This principle forms the basis for the measures adopted by Baker et al (2016) in their reports on funding fairness. The use of cost-adjusted revenue figures throughout this analysis and the descriptive portrait of top-percentile districts provided in Table 1 suggest that growing revenue concentration in the top percentile cannot be explained by shifting state efforts to provide funding based on student need.…”

“…This descriptive analysis combines district-level revenue and enrollment data from the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of School System Finances (F-33), information about the labor market in which districts are located from the National Center for Educational Statistics Education Comparable Wage Index (CWI), and district-level data on the characteristics of students attending each school district from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) from 2000 to 2015. For missing CWI values, I use the imputed values generated by Baker et al (2016). For states missing enrollment data for students designated English language learners, I used a multiple imputation model to estimate the number of students with an English language learner designation in districts during these years, using information on English language learner enrollments from the same states in nonmissing years.…”

Factors affecting the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in school settings

“…Nevertheless, it is important to note that social distancing measures may be more difficult to achieve fully in disadvantaged communities with underfunded and overcrowded schools, further exacerbating the COVID-19 crises in these communities, usually of color [16, 17].…”

“…In addition, the increased personal space in classroom enables students to avoid the likely higher viral concentration within short-range of the emitter (either via aerosols, droplets, or in combination) when far apart. Nevertheless, it is important to note that social distancing measures may be more difficult to achieve fully in disadvantaged communities (often of color) with underfunded and overcrowded schools [24,25].…”