Conclusion

A fair school funding system is central to making sure all students can get the opportunities and support they need. Policymakers and advocates in many states have prioritized K–12 funding equity in their agendas, focusing mainly on reforming the formulas that set districts’ target funding amounts. These efforts have produced some important wins in recent years, with new funding for multilingual learners, high-poverty districts, and students receiving special education services. But even the best state formula is not enough to ensure equity across the funding system. Many other policy factors affect the fairness of school funding, and when neglected, can become equity trapdoors—places where equity can fall out of the funding system.

Large and small policies can be equity trapdoors. The state allocation formula looms large in policy conversations, but smaller amounts of grant money distributed outside the formula can often create equity problems by tying up state dollars in low-need districts. Advocates may know that pooling property taxes at the state level for redistribution would be a massive policy shift. They may not realize, though, how rules about maximum and minimum permissible local tax rates could be used to rein in the inequity that comes of districts having very different levels of local property wealth. Lower-profile policy issues can matter a great deal for funding equity.

Well-meant policies can become equity trapdoors. Funding for districts with small enrollments might be meant to help rural communities address diseconomies of scale, but it can instead reward splinter districts for remaining separate from larger and more diverse neighbors. Cost-of-living indices in formulas intended to support competitive teacher salaries can have the effect of driving more money to high-wealth places. Requirements to spend formula dollars in specific, recommended ways for high-need students can drive districts to do what they can track rather than what works. Lawmakers must consider the equity consequences of all education policies—intended and unintended.

And many policies important to funding equity are not usually thought of as education policy at all. Regular property reassessment ensures that property owners pay their fair share for public schools and that revenues keep up with inflation. Tax breaks meant to spur economic development and new construction affect what school districts can collect. State pension debt levels, and how states manage associated costs, affect school district budgets. Advocates and lawmakers should consider the education funding equity angle even of policies that seem unrelated to schools.

An equitable school funding system is vital both for today’s students and for our collective future. We want graduates of all districts to thrive in postsecondary education, to succeed in the workforce, and to become participants and leaders in the same civil society. Crucially for our democracy, we want them to be prepared to do so on equal terms with each other, and that begins with fairly resourced K–12 public education. As state lawmakers and advocates engage with this issue, they should attend to the full range of both policy possibilities and equity risks. By broadening their understanding of the policies that matter, they can bring about better, more equitable K–12 school funding systems.