Here it is – my annual update of America’s most screwed school districts. This time, for stability purposes, I’ve used a 3-year average based on 2009-2011 data (2011 data being released earlier this week). As I’ve explained in my previous posts on this topic (from last year’s post on screwed districts)… It’s important to understand … Continue reading Most Screwed Local Public School Districts Update 2009-2011 →

Contrary to reformy wisdom regarding spending bubbles… the harmlessness …. oh wait… the benefits of spending cuts… and the fact that we all know as a reformy fact that we’ve already dumped plenty of money into our high need districts nationwide – it turns out that there actually are still some school districts out there … Continue reading America’s Most Screwed City Schools: Where are the least fairly funded city districts? →

I’ve been writing this blog since 2009. The initial purpose of the blog was to cut through frequently spewed media bluster about public (and private) schooling. False facts. False premises. Flimsy logic. This blog has often been sarcastic. I’ve tried to use edgy humor to make my points. Some, including my doctoral student Mark Weber, … Continue reading It’s just not funny anymore (and never was): Reflections on educational inequality and generations lost →

Another excerpt from forthcoming work: ====================== In 2011, the Obama administration formed a national equity commission[1] to explore fiscal inequities across U.S. Schools. In one meeting of that commission, participant Eric Hanushek introduced the following table (A-36-1, in Figure 44) from the National Center for Education Statistics to assert that, on average, U.S. States had … Continue reading Persistent Inequity & Dangerously Ignorant Denial →

For a number of years I’ve been producing lists of what I call America’s Most Screwed Public School Districts. The kind folks at Center for American Progress, in 2012, worked with me to put out a report on these districts, and how they got where they are. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/BakerSchoolDistricts.pdf I’ve also shown on this blog that … Continue reading America’s Most “Financially Disadvantaged” (e.g. Screwed) School Districts 2013 →

On a daily basis, I continue to be befuddled by the ignorant bluster, intellectual laziness and mathematical and financial ineptitude of those who most loudly opine on how to fix America’s supposed dreadful public education system.  Common examples that irk me include taking numbers out context to make them seem shocking, like this Newark example … Continue reading Stop School Funding Ignorance Now! A Philadelphia Story →

I’ll admit that the more I do this stuff, the more I write about today’s education policy environment and especially the environment around school funding, I do get more cynical. And few states have done more to encourage my cynicism than New York, of late. But I suspect that the tales from the trenches in … Continue reading How Modern School Finance/Education Policy Works: Lessons from New York →

Here’s a little Friday afternoon fun with the updated Census Fiscal Survey data through 2009-2010. I’ve written recently about the national school funding fairness report card, which I work on with colleagues from the Education Law Center. The report card can be found here: http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org/ I also recently wrote a blog post about America’s Most … Continue reading Which states screw the largest share of low income children? Another look at funding fairness →

Today, I, along with colleagues at the Education Law Center released the second round report on school funding fairness which can be found here: http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org We cover much ground in this report and develop what we believe are a useful set of indicators for comparing state school finance systems. In this new version of the … Continue reading Deconstructing Funding Fairness: Comments on the release of our latest report →