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Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:45:23 -0700
              <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET>
From:         MATTHEWS_D@CUBLDR.COLORADO.EDU
Subject:      Funding inequities (A modest proposal)

My turn.  Gene's suggestion that white children be used as hostages
to force more equitable funding of urban schools is basically the
strategy that was employed by the federal courts during the 1970s and
80s, leading to forced bussing and the rest.  I have no idea how
successful these strategies were: perhaps the current inequities would
be much worse today without them.  It is clear, however, that they
have not done the job of addressing the fundamental discrepancies in
levels of funding across schools.  As Kozol documents, how much
money your school has to spend is still determined mainly by the tax
base of the community where you live, and these discrepancies can be
much greater than a factor of two.

As Gene and Jim point out, part of the problem is that forced
integration has not been applied across district lines.  Suburban
districts have, therefore, become safe havens for higher income kids.
However, I don't believe that this is any longer the most important
reason why the hostage-taking strategy has broken down.  The big
problem is not that white people have their kids in well-funded
schools and are therefore content.  Suburban schools are increasingly
underfunded as well.  The problem is that most people don't have any
kids in school, period.  Forcing cross-district integration would have
no effect on these people at all.  Schools are arguably already more
integrated than society at large.

The problem IS a political one.  The broadly-based social consensus
about the value of public education that my generation grew up with
has broken down.  It is not that people have suddenly become anti-
education, it is just that people are still reflecting their self-interest like
they always have.  The area where I live is overwhelmingly white,
upper middle class, and generally conservative.  It is a very
prosperous bedroom community for the Denver/Boulder area.  It is,
unusually, very young, with elementary schools completely full and
little kids everywhere.  This community voted overwhelmingly in the
last election to support a one percent sales tax increase for education,
but the measure went down in flames statewide.  These people want
to spend more on the schools (statewide, not just their own) but they
can't because politically they are in the minority.  Their minority status
is not based on race or socio-economic status, but on the fact that they
have children in school.

I reiterate: the problem of funding inequities in public education are
very real and severe.  But they cannot be addressed simply by
attempting to redistribute an already inadequate pot of money
between so-called wealthy and poor school districts.  We must also
find a way to again make political decisions about the level of public
support for education generally.

So, what do we do about it?  I have two ideas. First, the courts have
been very negligent in not dealing with the issue of funding equity
head-on.  The courts should not use children as hostages to force
political decisions to equalize funding because such strategies are
ineffective.  The courts should instead directly rule district-to-district
funding inequities unconstitutional on a STATEWIDE basis.  The
reason this has not happened is because of the huge apparent cost of
doing so.  Nobody wants to force wealthy districts to spend less, and
the cost of bringing poor districts up to parity is inconceivable.

This is where part two comes in.  States should be required to allow
local option tax increases to increase local school funding, but coupled
to a system of matching state funds.  The local tax should be based on
a consistent level of EFFORT, not revenue (x dollars per $1000 dollars
of assessed valuation, or x percent sales tax).  The state match should
guarantee a consistent level of REVENUE for the same effort across
districts.  To pay for the program, poorer districts should be
overmatched, while wealthy districts should have a portion of their
revenues siphoned off by the state for equalization.

Is such a plan politically feasible?  Probably not, but it could become
so if the courts would get off the dime and address the gross inequities
in school funding within states.  There is some evidence (Kentucky,
Texas) that the courts remain interested in this issue, and with some
new appointments and well-designed litigation we could see some
action.  More importantly, this proposal would provide a mechanism
to permit those communities that want to spend more on their schools
to do so, without exacerbating funding inequities.  The problem is
NOT unsolvable.  It just requires a little imagination.


Dewayne Matthews
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU