Does School Finance Reform Reduce the Race Gap in School Funding?

This paper offers new evidence on the impacts of school finance reforms (SFRs) precipitated by school finance litigation, exploring the extent to which the impact of SFR differs by district racial composition. Using difference-in-differences and event study models with a series of district and year (or state-by-year) fixed effects, and a sixteen-year panel of over 10,000 school districts, my analyses exploit variation in funding across school districts, and timing of school finance court orders across states, to estimate the effect of SFR on the distribution of district funding by racial composition. Models include relevant control variables available in national data and results are robust to numerous alternative specifications, including estimating impacts on percent changes in resources (in addition to levels), restricting analyses to districts in SFR states, controlling for additional covariates available in only some years and some states, and adding controls for state-specific time trends. In addition, I estimate changes in New York State to assess whether and to what extent results are sensitive to additional controls for revenue-raising capacity and district costs. Results suggest that SFR can work to alleviate racial funding gaps, though impacts are moderate.

Introduction

In this introduction, Kimberly Jenkins Robinson explains that despite some gains from state school finance litigation, educational opportunity and achievement gaps remain prevalent throughout the United States. To address these enduring gaps, many scholars have argued that the United States should recognize a federal right to education, despite the United States Supreme Court’s refusal to recognize this right in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. It also is important to note that after decades in state court litigation, advocates have recently returned to federal court to argue for a federal right to education. Therefore, this introduction outlines that the book takes up three timely and essential questions regarding a federal right to education: Should the United States consider recognizing a federal right to education? How could the United States recognize such a right? And what should the right guarantee? The introduction concludes with a summary of each chapter.

State Constitutional Analysis in School Finance Litigation

Although education is not a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution, every state constitution has a provision mandating, at a minimum, that the state provide a system of free public schools. In school finance litigation, the plaintiffs claim that the state legislature has violated the state constitution by failing to fund the public schools in an equitable (“equity suit”) or adequate (“adequacy suit”) manner. Despite scores of cases and a significant amount of academic commentary, “there are few certainties in the school funding litigation process.”This chapter explores, in three parts, how courts have analyzed state constitutional provisions in school finance litigation. The first part demonstrates how states finance the public schools and why there are often disparities between school districts. The second part discusses state constitutional theories behind school finance litigation. The third part examines considerations involved in the jurisdictional, merits, and remedial phases of school finance litigation.

Contested Meanings of Equality: The Unrealized Promise of the Antidiscrimination Principle and the Uncertain Future of a Right to Education

Many people take for granted that the antidiscrimination principle and an equality norm are one and the same. In fact, there are significant differences that should not be overlooked. Education law offers unique insights into the distinctions because school desegregation cases both concretized demands to be free of discrimination and cultivated aspirations to be equal. In the years since 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that racially separate schools are inherently unequal in Brown v. Board of Education, the antidiscrimination principle has evolved into a requirement that the government be colorblind; that is, public officials must refrain from all consideration of race in their decision-making. A colorblindness requirement can have perverse consequences for equality. Most notably, local school districts today cannot weigh race in making student assignments to promote voluntary integration. Faced with constraints like these, reformers have sought to capitalize on an antidiscrimination principle without sacrificing their goals for equality. For example, federal civil rights statutes designed to protect children with disabilities and English language learners mandate meaningful access to the curriculum as well as protection from discrimination. In school finance litigation, advocates have moved even further away from an antidiscrimination focus. They have demanded recognition of a right to education, an interest that acknowledges every child’s right to flourish. New strategies that push beyond the antidiscrimination principle to promote equal educational opportunity have not been uniformly successful, but they can deepen our understanding of a fair and inclusive educational system.

Rural Schools Under Scrutiny

Historically, rural schools have been geographically and politically isolated to the extent that some might say that they have been the victims of, or beneficiaries from, an unstated government policy of benign neglect. Recently, conditions and relationships have changed with the enactment of state and federal accountability legislation and legal challenges to the constitutionality of state funding systems for schools. Federal concerns about the quality of teachers and the progress of students are accompanied by state standards, proficiency tests for high school graduation, and school report cards. Most of these requirements are unfunded or under-funded mandates. However, rural schools likely will benefit from the recent shift in school finance litigation from a single emphasis on equity to a dual interest in equity and adequacy. If education is a state responsibility, then in an era of state-mandated standards and assessments, the state has an inherent responsibility to ensure that students have access to the human and material resources required for them to meet standards and pass state proficiency examinations.

The High Cost of The Nation's Current Framework for Education Federalism

This Article will show the consistent ways that the current understanding of education federalism within the United States has hindered three of the major reform efforts to promote a more equitable distribution of educational opportunity: school desegregation, school finance litigation, and, most recently, NCLB. In exploring how education federalism has undermined these efforts, this Article adds to the understanding of other scholars who have critiqued these reforms and examined why the nation has failed to guarantee equal educational opportunity. For example, scholars have argued that the failure to undertake earnest efforts to achieve equal educational opportunity is caused by a variety of factors, including the lack of political will to accomplish this goal, the domination of suburban influences over education politics, and the failure of the United States to create a social welfare system that addresses the social and economic barriers that impede the achievement of many poor and minority students.1s In a past work, I also explored some of the reasons that these efforts have failed to ensure equal educational opportunity. In light of this literature, education federalism undoubtedly is not the only factor that has influenced the nation's inability to ensure equal educational opportunity. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the consistent ways in which education federalism has contributed to the ineffectiveness of efforts to ensure equal educational opportunity as scholars propose new avenues to achieve this paramount goal. In addition, in both past and future work, I argue that the nation should consider embracing a new framework for education federalism that would enable the nation to more effectively achieve its goals for public schools. Understanding how education federalism has hindered past reforms is an essential part of exploring how education federalism should be reshaped.