A Stratified Analysis of School Resource Inequality and Its Correlates

• In Event: 43.077 - MTCC Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 43.077-7 - Educational Finance, Resources, and the Challenges of Equity

Abstract

We provide a stratified portrait of school resource inequality. We generate pairwise resource gaps for student subgroups (poor and nonpoor and white and minority), among three strata: within districts, within states, and within the country. These strata and subgroup-relative shares provide a comprehensive summary of school resource inequality. Poor and minority students receive less total spending within the country, indicating the concentration of poor and minority students in relatively lower-spending states. Within states and districts, however, poor and minority students receive more total spending. Teacher quality indicators reveal limitations of this progressivity: districts and states that allocate more spending to poor and minority students also allocate greater shares of inexperienced and absent teachers.

Authors

• Nell Williams, University of Pennsylvania

• Kenneth Shores