Resource Equalization
A solution to these issues is resource equalization, where each school in a district will receive the same funding as the others in that area. In doing this, schools will be able to provide equal access to resources, giving each student the ability to succeed.
Other Countries
Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland are able to produce high quality results while simultaneously distributing resources equally over their schools. The data below demonstrates this by comparing student success to resource equalization.
Another country that has found success in this method of resource equalization is Japan. In Japan, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that only about 9 percent of the variation in student performance can be explained by differences in wealth, whereas it is 17 percent in the United States. Japan also boasts a higher graduation rate than the worldwide average by a significant margin, with a rate of 96.7 percent. Additionally, teachers are paid more than the OECD average, despite what some may think due to resource equalization.
More information on the affects of resource equalization in Japan can be found here. |
Lawsuits
In Detroit, lawsuits have occurred due to inadequate resources. In November of 2019, a group of students from one of Detroit's lowest performing school districts filed a lawsuit regarding the poor quality of the facilities and the lack of qualified teachers.
Information about this can be found here. In Massachusetts, a lawsuit stated that minority heavy schools were being underfunded, which affects the student's right to a proper education. This issue has elevated enough to draw the attention of the NAACP, who support the lawsuit. Many of the plaintiffs for the case are parents of students who attend low-income and minority schools. However, the governor had proposed a bill to increase education funding, but it is not seen as enough action by the NAACP.
More information about this case can be found in the link below. |
Economic Diversity
Through economic diversity, schools can have a mixture of students from different economic statuses, which would boost support for each school financially, regardless of race. By creating a more diverse economic school, the argument that minority heavy schools tend to be in higher poverty areas is eliminated. This would force lawmakers to equally distribute funding across all schools, instead of focusing on more wealthy schools, which also tend to be more majority heavy.
One place this has been implemented is San Antonio, which used to have a high amount of economic disparities between the schools. Low-income students are promoted to go to highly sought after schools, which also have greater funding for them. This creates a diverse economic background in the school, which allows the students to succeed regardless of their economic status, further taking race out of the question of equality in education.
More information can be found here. |