Center for American Progress
June 2008
Here the Center for American Progress offers four papers on "comparability," or the lack thereof, in school district spending practices. Comparability has a technical meaning: districts must fund schools "comparably" before federal Title I funds can be added. But comparability also has a colloquial meaning, which is that districts too often spend less on schools serving the neediest students. Marguerite Roza (who authored one of these papers) has previously written that district budgeting practices mask the true costs of teachers (the more experienced and expensive of whom gravitate toward less-needy schools) and can unevenly distribute other resources. In her paper for CAP, Roza revisits these challenges and argues that, within the context of Title I, simply "forcing districts to equalize dollar expenditures would restore the original intent of comparability." In another paper, Phyllis McClure offers a detailed, left-leaning history of Title I. Ross Wiener's paper analyzes where potential changes to Title I would foster comparability. He sides with McClure's activist approach and argues that Congress should "require states to assess and attain equity in curricular offerings, instructional support materials, and facilities to support instruction." The final chapter offers something different; Matt Hill of the Oakland Unified School District explains its use of weighted student funding (WSF), or "Results Based Budgeting," which has effectively eliminated funding disparities by allocating per-pupil budgets to schools rather than centrally distributing teachers and other resources. The volume, overall, offers enough differences of opinion to give it some spark, though the authors (unsurprisingly) agree on the core principle that achieving fair funding in all schools, especially those serving the neediest students, should be a paramount goal for education reformers. You can find it here.
