The whole point of the Every Student Succeeds Act was to revert financial and regulatory authority back to states after No Child Left Behind’s era of federal supremacy. In addition to rolling back the Education Department’s manifold oversight powers, though, the law also takes affirmative steps to grant states more flexibility to achieve their desired educational ends. Case in point: The good folks over at Chiefs for Change have released a paper zeroing in on an unsung ESSA wrinkle that allows states to set aside up to 3 percent of their federal Title I funding for so-called “Direct Student Services.” These funds, which must be earmarked for districts with large percentages of underperforming schools, can include online course access, tutoring, school choice programs, and the like. If every state availed itself of this perk, it could free up $425 million per year. That buys an awful lot of state autonomy.
Last week, we told you about “School Money,” NPR’s ongoing examination of educational finance in districts across the country. In addition to long, national entries, the organization has also filed evocative dispatches from its affiliate stations in different states. Boston’s WGBH featured a gloating segment on how Massachusetts became the national gold standard, while WBHM in Alabama shined a spotlight on the unrelieved poverty and deprivation in rural Sumter County. One story out of Illinois, however, perfectly demonstrates the purpose of the exercise: In tiny Chicago Rindge School District, a three-school entity on the troubled southern end of the city that mostly serves low-income students and English language learners, per-pupil funding stands at just $9,794—roughly 20 percent lower than the national average. Just north of the city, meanwhile, each student at Rondout District 72 is lavished with $28,639 per year as a result of the heavy property taxes paid primarily by local businesses. School funding isn’t an altogether simple concept to grasp, but certain inequities require very little elaboration.
Dollars aren’t the only resource distributed unevenly across the country. In some states, qualified teachers can be found in abundance, while in others, experienced instructors with the necessary credentials are scarcer than hen’s teeth. That’s the assessment of the Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay, who investigated complaints of a national teacher shortage only to find that many places already have more than they can use. Numbers can even fluctuate within individual states—Oklahoma, for instance, can’t seem to push the glut of surplus teachers from its overserved central portion to outlying regions where principals can’t fill classrooms. Those hiring problems have prompted national efforts to bring new recruits into the field, but a better solution might be to keep existing professionals from quitting so soon—and incentivizing them to go where they’re most needed.
