School Funding Resources
The authors in this special issue of Poverty and Race, which was guest edited by Derek Black, highlight these interconnections, examine their effects on equal educational opportunities, and chart a path for addressing segregation and school funding in tandem.
Read this issue here.
Several recent national surveys have found support for school integration. This fact sheet, American Attitudes on School Integration: Recent Polling Results, summarizes findings from three school integration polls, conducted by The Washington Post-Ipsos, Brown’s Promise, and The Century Foundation, and offers key takeaways and sample messages on how to talk about school integration using a positive framing. Polling suggests that support for school integration is even stronger when paired with initiatives that address funding inequities.
Over the last five decades, a large body of research has demonstrated that concentrated school poverty undermines the educational progress of all students, especially pupils who are poor themselves. A handful of studies suggest there may be school-level poverty thresholds that influence achievement for some students in some subjects and grade levels. After a comprehensive review of the extant social, behavioral, and social science research, author Roslyn Mickelson found no reliable and valid body of evidence that points to specific thresholds of poverty concentration that can be used as the empirical basis for school assignment policies. We need more research on this question using longitudinal, nationally representative datasets, employing state of the art statistical techniques to test for possible thresholds in different subjects, for demographic groups, and at various grade levels. Given the current state of our knowledge on the relationship of schoollevel poverty to achievement, educational decision makers should focus on reducing concentrations of school-level poverty to as low a level as is feasible given the available demographic mix, and avoid policies based on the unsupported notion that there are poverty thresholds above and below which student achievement levels can be predicted.
This annotated bibliography provides an overview of literature on the impact of school-based poverty concentration on academic achievement.
The Interconnections Between School Funding and Segregation
Seventy years ago, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial integration essential to providing equal educational opportunities for all students. Yet, despite this historic ruling, neither Brown nor subsequent desegregation cases fully addressed how inadequate school funding intersects with race and segregation—leaving students of color and low-income students trapped in a persistent double bind.
For decades, our country has not only failed to make meaningful progress on school integration but has also avoided addressing the inequitable funding structures that exacerbate educational disparities. This raises a critical question: What is the connection between school segregation and funding inequities?
​
Decisions about how children are assigned to schools and how resources are allocated are deeply intertwined. Yet, legal and legislative efforts often treat these as separate issues, neglecting the systemic roots of educational inequity. To create meaningful change, we must address these challenges together.
