PSA has noted previously the correlation between the demographics of where a student lives, and their access to learning resources that enable learning success. In other words, if a student lives in an area with lower learning resources, the odds are that they will have a lot more trouble becoming all that they “could be” relative to those students who do have access to the learning resources. Several research reports demonstrating this for various areas in the state of NM exist.
This report suggests that the funding for schools located in different areas tends to vary by the racial component of that area’s population. One cautions that statistics are problematic and one needs an in-depth analysis of how studies were done to really know if they are “accurate”, or their claims are “true”.
The US has an extremely complex way of funding schools which varies from state to state and community to community; finding a way to summarize those differences is very difficult. The below report is one attempt to do so, presumably it’s not the only such report out there.
Broadly speaking there are definite correlations between various income levels and various racial groupings in the US, and we can safely conclude that this plays a role in some schools being underfunded. And it’s safe to conclude that there is much to be done to spread learning resources equitably between schools.
The report below says there’s been some progress, but there’s still a long way to go.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Report-finds-23-billion-racial-funding-gap-for-schools-The-Washington-Post.pdf”]