VII. A Time for Better Borders

School district boundary change is not a new idea. Lines were redrawn to merge over 100,000 school districts in the twentieth century. Since then, redistricting has been used extensively, albeit in a less systematic way. Consolidation—erasing the line between two school systems—has often been a way of seeking greater efficiencies or attempting to address fiscal distress or declining enrollment. By contrast, secession—pulling away from a school district by drawing a new dividing line—has often been a means of advancing the interests of affluent, usually predominantly White communities. Creating a new district, and a new taxing jurisdiction, allows them to keep from sharing property tax dollars beyond their own small enclaves.

But redistricting has almost never been used as a tool in the education equity toolbox, even though it holds great potential to create fairer school districts. The right boundaries, drawn to encompass more integrated student populations and more equal tax bases, could transform our school systems.

The right boundaries, drawn to encompass more integrated student populations and more equal tax bases, could transform our school systems.

Policy discussions about education funding usually focus on state allocations, especially the formula that states use to determine how much money districts need for their schools and students. But state policy also governs many aspects of local funding. State equalization policies determine the amount of formula funding that districts are responsible to raise themselves, with higher-wealth districts expected to cover more of the cost out of local dollars. State laws also set the breadth of local taxing authority—how low or high school district property tax rates can be, and whether they can impose any other kinds of taxes locally. And a third, underappreciated way that states affect local school funding is by drawing school district boundaries or by legislating the ways in which they can be drawn and by whom. This is an area that is already very much within the state’s purview.

This is the time for states to take up this challenge. As they face near-certain budget difficulties born of cuts to federal health care and nutrition assistance funding, they will likely consider cuts to education funding. But property-poor districts depend more heavily on state aid for their schools, and across-the-board cuts are likely to affect their students the most, unless they can make up the difference by severely increasing local property taxes. Rather than subject these districts to the double whammy of aid cuts and higher property taxes, states should instead try redistricting to eliminate big property-wealth disparities. The proposals in this report offer a new way to rightsize districts’ tax bases so they correspond to their student populations. By bringing all school districts’ per-pupil tax capacity closer to the statewide property valuation per pupil, states can reduce any one district’s reliance on state aid, softening the blow of any state budget cuts on schools. At the same time, districts will have more of a local cushion—tax bases that can better support their schools without onerous rate increases.

In addition to helping maintain adequate education funding in difficult budget times, the models presented in this report also show that it is possible for states to give more diverse student populations more equitable access to local revenues. With whole-state redistricting using any of the three approaches discussed, states can better align district property tax bases to the number of students they support and ensure that all kids get a fairer share of the state’s property tax base, regardless of race, class, or neighborhood.

It has become commonplace to observe that disparities between our nation’s school systems prevent public education from being the “great equalizer” envisioned by schooling pioneer Horace Mann in 1848.¹ Poor and minoritized students receive fewer educational resources than they should; their districts struggle to raise the funding needed to support them to success. Students of different backgrounds are not prepared to go on to participate in the economy, or in American democracy, on equal terms. But this problem arises in large part from ground-level divides that simply do not have to exist. Students of different races need not be segregated into different districts. Poverty does not have to be concentrated into some districts and almost entirely absent from others. And no law of nature requires that property tax capacity be so much higher in some school districts. All of these conditions are the product of where states place their school district borders: along lines that entrench and worsen America’s racial and economic divides.

States can make a different policy choice because school district maps are indeed a product of state policy. By adopting a redistricting approach like one of the models presented here, states can create more diverse systems supported by more equal tax bases. Greater integration and funding fairness would go a long way toward restoring the potential of the great equalizer. States have a responsibility toward all their children, and they have the power to do better. They just need to redraw the lines.