School Funding

50 Years Older and Deeper in Debt

The Shaky Foundations of U.S. School Funding

By Stan Karp

Illustrator: Boris Séméniako

Reproducing Inequality Instead of Eradicating It

The process of remaking school funding in the United States begins with understanding how the current system reproduces inequality instead of eradicating it.

In most countries the right to education is enshrined in the national constitution and supported by a centralized, national funding system. The patchwork U.S. system of local property taxes and 50 separate state funding systems makes it an outlier. As with voting rights, the lack of strong federal protections provides room for less transparent and less equitable state and local systems. 

https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/50-years-older-and-deeper-in-debt/