Pursuing equity鈥攈owever it鈥檚 defined鈥攈as become a rallying cry for K-12 educators and advocates alike. More than half of America鈥檚 50 million students today are nonwhite, and a growing number of them are English-language learners or students with special needs. There are widespread and well-documented disparities between the educational needs of these student groups and their classroom peers.
Policymakers, researchers, district administrators, and teachers have taken it upon themselves to push for 鈥渆quity鈥� between student groups. At professional conferences, in school posters, at administrative headquarters, and in school board鈥檚 vision statements, equity usually is understood to eradicate those disparities or make 鈥渆qual鈥� academic outcomes between all student groups. It has also come to mean equal access to gifted programming, high-quality teachers, and high-quality curriculum.
But in the purely fiscal world, the word 鈥渆quity鈥� has a much muddier, complicated鈥攁nd legally fraught鈥攄efinition. And the issue is likely to come under renewed scrutiny with the 鈥榮 new requirement for public release of school-by-school spending data as an element of states鈥� school report cards.
Many states pledge in their constitutions to provide an 鈥渆quitable鈥� education, while rarely鈥攊f ever鈥攕pelling out exactly what that means. (To complicate things even more, many states also pledge to provide an 鈥渁dequate鈥� education, leaving that similarly murky as well.)
As a result, policymakers and the courts have long struggled to define equitable spending, most often focusing on spending imbalances between districts.
For decades, courts pushed legislatures to make funding the same between districts. In more recent years, after states established learning standards, courts have defined equity to mean how much spending it would require to get different groups of students鈥攖hose of color, for example, or English-learners鈥攖o meet the state鈥檚 standards. But a growing number of states鈥� highest courts, such as Texas鈥� and Connecticut鈥檚, have determined that, while spending patterns between districts was visibly inequitable, it was not the court鈥檚 role to dictate to legislatures how to spend taxpayers鈥� money.
Equity Among Districts Elusive
Most states, for a variety of reasons, still have not reached equitable spending between districts as defined by their courts, or spending at levels that鈥檚 enough to get all student groups to meet state standards, as defined by researchers.
Decades of research indicates that more money matters, but researchers have not concluded how that money should be spent, or in what amount, to improve academic outcomes. As a result, state legislatures and plaintiffs in court cases have employed researchers to conduct expensive and often controversial studies to put a price tag on equitable spending.
Advocacy groups have long complained about inexperienced teachers, leaky roofs, and fewer Advanced Placement programs at certain schools within districts. But they often lacked evidence to quantify those imbalances.
Advocates hope that new spending data required under ESSA, which is being released along with state 2018-19 report cards this year, will force courts to grapple again with what equity means and whether the courts should force districts to spend equitably.
How do educators define fiscal equity when it comes to K-12 schools? In a nationwide survey of school principals and district-level administrators for a special report on school finance earlier this year, the Education Week Research Center asked for their definitions and came up with a wide range of answers. Here鈥檚 a sample:
鈥淪pending money equally for students that are male vs. female, college-bound vs. tech-school-bound vs. military. ... Money may be spent differently to enable all to succeed.鈥� 鈥擟hief technology officer in a rural Wisconsin district
鈥淢aking sure students鈥� needs are met while also making sure teachers are paid fairly.鈥� 鈥擟hief financial officer in a southwestern Colorado district
鈥淓quality is giving everyone a pair of shoes. Equity is giving everyone a pair of shoes that fits their feet. Equitable school spending is dependent on the individual needs of local schools.鈥� 鈥擬iddle school principal in a suburban Connecticut district
鈥淚nvestment of time and treasure to achieve more equitable outcomes for students of varied attributes.鈥� 鈥擲uperintendent in a rural Arizona district
鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe there is a perfect plan, but something has to be better than what we have now. Current funding depends too much on voting demographics than need.鈥� 鈥擟hief financial officer in a western New York state district
鈥淎ll districts, nationwide, should have all of the resources the best-funded schools in the nation have.鈥� 鈥擲uperintendent in a Long Island, N.Y., district
鈥淚f a school is serving 53 percent of students in poverty, that school should receive federal [Title I] dollars that those kids are generating for the district. We are not.鈥� 鈥擯rincipal at a charter school in Charleston, S.C.
鈥淓very student鈥檚 needs are met so everyone can achieve mastery of the guaranteed and viable curriculum. This requires facilities, technology, resources, a wide range of support structures, and especially highly qualified teachers.鈥� 鈥擠irector of curriculum in a rural New Hampshire district
