Education Next has just released an interesting and tantalizing debate on school funds. In the wake of Flores, issues of funding equity have again risen to the fore. It's lucky then that the participants in this debate, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth (authors of the tome??Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle??in America's Public Schools) and Michael Rebell (author of the forthcoming??Courts and??Kids: Pursuing Educational Equity through the State Courts) are here to hash it out. Hanushek and Lindseth argue that spending the money already going into education more wisely is the ticket, specifically by reforming teacher pay scales to a performance-based model. Rebell counters that if you take a second look at the numbers, American education funding is actually neither adequate nor equitable. Definitely worth a read!
And if this topic interests you, Fordham (in concert with Brookings) will be publishing its own (slightly more general) contribution on this conversation in the form of the forthcoming book From Schoolhouse to Courthouse. Keep an eye out for its release in August.
