When all else has failed: Resolving the school funding problem (original) (raw)

Rural Children, Rural Schools, and Public School Funding Litigation: A Real Problem in Search of a Real Solution

Nebraska Law Review, 2003

Bureau confirmed that rural areas continue to be among the poorest in the nation. 4 Although rural poverty is a national problem, it continues to be most extreme in the South, with rural minorities, women, and children being the most disadvantaged. 5 According to a 1997 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: "The poverty rate for rural children was 23.0 percent. For rural Black children, who face the combined economic disadvantages of rurality, minority status, and childhood, the poverty rate was 48.2 percent. The majority of rural poor children (59.1 percent) lived in single-parent families, most (53.2 percent) in female-headed families." 6 4. Highest Poverty Rates in Border Counties, Rural Areas, Associated Press, Oct. 30, 2002 (on file with the author). 5. Id. 6. DOUG BowERs & PEGGY COOK, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, RURAL CONDITIONS AND TRENDS: SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS ISSUE, at http://www.ers.usda. gov/publications/rcat73 (Feb. 1997) (on file with author). 7. HAROLD L. HODGKINSON, A DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE SOUTHEAST 18 (1992) ("In the nation, for every urban 'hyper-poor' child living at 50 percent of poverty of the official poverty level, there is one rural child who is just as poor.") 8. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 562 (1964) (establishing the one man, one vote principle and holding that "legislators represent people, not trees or acres"). Because isolated rural areas generally have more trees and acres than people and votes, their political influence is limited accordingly.

Estimating Local Redistribution Through Property-Tax-Funded Public School Systems

National Tax Journal, 2012

Local intra-suburban heterogeneity implies the possibility of redistribution through local public taxes and expenditures, yet there are no studies of the extent of such transfers. This paper provides evidence that local redistribution in the propertytax-fi nanced school systems in suburban Chicago is substantial, amounting to $2.3 billion or two-thirds of property-tax-fi nanced school expenditures. Most of those transfers fl ow from households with no children enrolled in local public schools to those with children in the local public schools, rather than from households with high-value homes to those with lower-valued homes.

Contingency in the Local Provision of Public Education

Growth and Change, 1998

This paper examines the relationships between education spending and measures of wealth, absentee land ownership, and educational attainment in central and southern Appalachia. Drawing on advances in realist theory and methodology the paper develops a conceptual model and evaluates it using both extensive and intensive research strategies. The empirical analyses combine an extensive expansion-method model of an 80-county area with an intensive case study of a single county. In the extensive model, education spending is hypothesized a function of local wealth as contingently modified by varying levels of absentee land ownership and educational attainment. High levels of absentee land ownership have the effect of decreasing the degree to which a particular level of wealth translates into a particular level of education spending. Conversely, high levels of educational attainment have the effect of increasing the degree to which a particular level of wealth translates into education spending. The extensive model demonstrates that the wealth-spending relationship is translated in a locally contingent fashion. In the case study, the contextual nature of these relationships is described in a single community, and the interactions of complex social processes are detailed. In addition to contributing to the literature on the geography of education spending in particular and the geography of social programs in general, the research demonstrates the utility of integrating extensive and intensive research methodologies employed through a realist theoretical framework.

The Urban-Rural Funding Disparity

1994

As part of litigation challenging the equity and adequacy of school funding in Alabama, educational resources and school conditions were examined in the highest and lowest funded school districts in the state. Identification of these districts revealed that all eight of the highest funded districts were urban systems, while all eight of the lowest funded districts were rural or county systems. Site visits to 45 schools in 15 of the above districts, interviews with principals, and a teacher survey produced completely consistent findings of clear disparities between rural and urban schools. Compared to urban schools, rural schools had less attractive physical plants and grounds, fewer educational resources in virtually all areas, fewer instructional offerings, and staffs that were more dispirited about their abilities to provide effective education under existing conditions. Particular educational and environmental disadvantages of rural schools included restricted opportunities for participating in outdoor athletics; discomforts caused by inefficient heating and cooling systems, old and dark school interiors, and dirty rest rooms lacking in basic supplies; cramped classrooms lacking sufficient textbooks and maps; and old and inadequate libraries and gymnasiums. In addition, teachers and principals reported staff and student involvement in fund raising, and the lack of funds for enrichment programs, subjects such as drama and foreign languages, professional development, and teacher compensation for extra work. Includes tables of statistical data.

The legacy of Rodriguez: Three decades of school finance reform in Texas

Bolt Hall School of Law Symposium on education, 2006

Over three decades ago a federal district court in Texas ruled that the state's heavy reliance on the local property tax to fund public education violated the equal protection clause of the US constitution because the wide disparities among school districts in per-pupil spending resulted primarily from differences in the assessed value of property among school districts. In a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) reversed the decision of the district court. The Supreme Court's decision ...