A new study finds that public school funding continues to be unfair across America, reports the watchdog website schoolfundingfairness.org. Despite the country’s economic recovery, states have been slow to restore public school funding to the levels they experienced before the recession. Students living in impoverished areas suffer the most.
The study found that 14 states, including Texas, have “regressive” school funding, meaning they provide less funding to school districts with higher concentrations of poor students. Meanwhile, nineteen states including Colorado have "flat" school funding systems, which means they fail to provide any increase in funding to address the needs of students in poor districts. Four states, including Oklahoma, do provide higher funding to high poverty districts, but the overall level of funding in these states still ranks them among the lowest in the nation.