What's the Magic Word? Money.

In my last post, I described how schools across America have dramatic differences in the quality of education they deliver to their students. Public schools in Philadelphia located only half a mile from the elite magnet school Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School (ranked #1 in Pennsylvania by U.S. News and World Report Rankings) look like they may as well have been in another country.

How can it be that schools in the same city have such a difference in their educational quality? The answer may be found crumpled up in your wallet. Money.

According to U.S. Census data many suburban schools spend upwards of $20,000 per pupil, while other schools in neighboring cities may spend as little as $6,000 or less towards their students' education. Now, this is not to say that an education can be judged solely by the amount of money invested in a student, but the reality is that schools with more money can attract more teachers, purchase more books, and invest in educational resources like student laptops or tablets.

You may be thinking, "These are all public schools, how can one have so much funding compared to the other?" The answer may be found not in the schools, but in the surrounding area.

When you own a house in an area, you pay property taxes. This money goes to your local government and is allocated towards your community. Your money will probably go to fund local libraries, snow plows, street cleaners, post offices, and, most importantly, schools. In fact, nearly half of all property tax revenue is used for public elementary and secondary school education.

Based on what I have told you, you may be thinking that property tax rates in suburban areas must be much higher than they are in cities. But, in fact, the opposite is true. In many places, inner-city residents pay significantly higher property tax rates than their suburban counterparts.

So how is it that suburban schools end up with more money?

Because their property is worth more. They pay lower taxes, but on higher property values, leading to a greater total. For example, the average person in Philadelphia county pays $1,326 in property taxes per year while the average person in neighboring Montgomery county pays $3,834 in property taxes. This means that Montgomery county schools could be collecting as much as 3 times the amount of money that Philadelphia schools collect. Also, Philadelphia has a more densely-populated area, so the money is spread out across many schools instead of being concentrated in a few.

It would be one thing if the differences were relatively small. It's unlikely that every school district in the United States will one day have an identical budget, but the disparities are so huge that they cannot be bridged without substantial change.

"Some districts - including Reading, Allentown, and Philadelphia - are highly unlikely to rise to the top in spending. They simply cannot generate the local revenue. Philadelphia's local property tax rates are relatively average, but its spending for metropolitan areas is low. Reading's local property tax rate is actually quite high, yet...it can hardly generate sufficient local revenue per pupil. Meanwhile, Radnor and Lower Merion have relatively low local property tax rates and, despite receiving very little state aid, manage to substantially outspend most districts in the state."
- Center for American Progress

I would like to highlight the fact that the affluent districts mentioned in the last sentence (Lower Merion and Radnor) receive very little state aid. So, even though these more disadvantaged school districts are receiving more aid, they are still miles behind their neighboring school communities. This is especially concerning because the state gives aid, not to even out school districts, but to try and help those areas that require more funding due to poverty and hardship.

Arne Duncan, Former United States Education Secretary, explains, "The point of that money was to supplement, recognizing that poor children and English language learners and students with disabilities come to school with additional challenges... This is about trying to get additional resources to children and communities who everyone knows need additional help."

Instead, this money has gone towards building a bridge to close the gap in inequality. The only problem: they only built it half-way. There is still a long way to go towards equaling out our education system.