School District Funding Gap Leaves Poor Students Behind
With limited federal funding, school districts heavily rely on local sources, putting students in poor districts at a disadvantage. This disparity is hard to ignore.
According to the New York Times:
[In the 2010-11 school year], the wealthiest 10 percent of school districts, in rich enclaves like Bridgehampton and Amagansett on Long Island, spent $25,505 on average per pupil. In the poorest 10 percent of New York’s school districts — in cities like Elmira, which has double the nation’s poverty rate and half its median family income — the average spending per student was only $12,861.
The article goes on to discuss how the disparity affects student performance:
In New York, according to Peter Applebee, an expert on education finance at the United Teacher’s union, only 18 percent of students in the poorest 10 percent of school districts scored above proficiency level in math last year. In the richest tenth, 45 percent did.
