Weighting for Adequacy

By Ross Rubenstein, Amy Ellen Schwartz, & Leanna Stiefel

A report released in June by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute sheds much-needed light on a problem that has been largely overlooked in the debates over school finance: funding inequities between schools rather than districts. ( "Call for ‘Weighted’ Student Funding Gets Bipartisan Stamp of Approval," July 12, 2006.)

“Fund the Child: Tackling Inequity & Antiquity in School Finance” highlights the shameful fact that while schools serving the greatest concentrations of needy children require more resources to help students reach high levels of performance, these schools often receive fewer resources or, at the very least, insufficiently higher levels of funding. Indeed, our own research in large districts such as Chicago and New York City over the past decade has consistently found that schools serving the most students from low-income families, the lowest-performing students, and the largest proportions of at-risk students are typically taught by the most inexperienced and least educated—and therefore the lowest-paid—teachers.

We applaud Fordham and the illustrious group of signatories to its report for putting these issues on the table and for proposing a policy, known as weighted-student funding, intended to address these inequities. But before weighted funding becomes yet another widely adopted, poorly implemented fad, eventually consigned to the dustbin of education history, we think it is critical that educators consider some of the more difficult challenges and questions such a policy raises. Here are some thoughts...