Abstract
ESEA's original intent was to provide educational assistance to less privileged students. However, ESEA's supplemental funding for students and teachers has often been inadequate in addressing pervasive and systematic disparities in fiscal resources. These disparities exist between states, within states, and within school districts. In the spirit of the original legislation, this article proposes addressing educational fiscal inequities via a new program within ESEA that would reward states for reforming their education finance systems to address inequities between and within states, and within districts. The program would effectively steer federal resources to encourage thoughtful work to reform and recalibrate state- and district-level finance mechanisms. It would be designed as a competitive grant program built upon the framework of Race to the Top. This article articulates a rationale for the program, especially the need for a renewed federal focus on opportunity-to-learn, reviews relevant research, outlines program details, and reviews political considerations.
- Copyright © 2015 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Reproduction by the United States Government in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose. TThe authors wish to thank Dr. Marshall Smith, former undersecretary of education and former dean and professor, Stanford University, Andrew Rotherham of Bellwether Associates, and Jack Jennings, former director of the Center for Education Policy, for their substantial comments on the policy ideas in this paper. Direct correspondence to: Eric A. Houck, eahouck{at}unc.edu, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Education, 121F Peabody Hall, CB 3500, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; Elizabeth DeBray, edebray{at}uga.edu, University of Georgia, 325 River’s Crossing, 850 College Station Rd., Athens, Georgia 30602.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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- Article
- Abstract
- FUNDING VARIATIONS AMONG AND WITHIN STATES AND DISTRICTS AND POSSIBLE REMEDIES
- ADEQUACY AND OPPORTUNITY-TO-LEARN
- OPPORTUNITY-TO-LEARN AND ADEQUACY FROM A SCHOOL FINANCE PERSPECTIVE
- OPPORTUNITY-TO-LEARN AND ADEQUACY FROM A POLICY PERSPECTIVE
- GOALS AND DESIGN
- POLITICAL CONTEXT AND INSTITUTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
- CONCLUSION
- FOOTNOTES
- REFERENCES
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