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Volume 5, Number 3
REPRESENTATIVE HAWKINS RELEASES REPORT ON SCHOOL FINANCE
In December 1990, Representative Augustus Hawkins (D-CA), the retiring Chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, released a study on the impact of fiscal inequity in public schools on economically dis advantaged students. The report, Shortchanging Children: The Impact of Fiscal Inequity on the Education of Students at Risk, was prepared for the Committee by Willain L. Taylor and Dianne M. Piche, lawyers who spe cialize in civil rights and education. The study looks at the distribution of resources under state systems for financing public schools, and focuses on the impact of these financing systems on the availability of services that have been identified as essential to the success of at-risk students, pre-school programs, low teacher-stu dent ratios, counseling services, experienced teachers, and state of the art curriculum.
In a statement releasing the study, Representative Hawkins said:
"This is the first study that links fiscal inequity to the deprivation of services that educators regard as vital to the success of America's school children. It points the way to innovative legislation to improve the education effectiveness of Chapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act .... [The study] goes beyond the debate about whether money is important in education to identify major disparities in the key ser vices that money buys [and] it zeroes in on how fiscal inequity stymies the federal government in its limited role of assisting at-risk students ... If the Bush Administration is at all serious about achieving national goals in education, it must join the Congress in redressing the damaging consequences of fiscal inequity. I hope that Congress will make this a priority in 1991."
Findings and Recommendations
The findings include:
"The prevalent system of financing public schools through heavy reliance on locally raised property taxes leads to widespread disparities in expenditures among public school districts within states. Property-poor districts, which have lower assessed valua tion per child, often tax at much higher rates than property-wealthy districts yet yield far fewer dollars for their effort.
"Inequitable systems of school finance inflict disproportionate harm on minority and economically disadvantaged students. On an inter-state basis, such students are con centrated in states, primarily in the South, that have the lowest capacities to finance public education. On an intra-state basis, many of the states with the widest disparities in educational expenditures are large industrial states. In these states, many minorities and economically disadvantaged students are located in property-poor urban districts which fare the worst in educational expenditures. In addition, in several states economically disadvantaged students, white and black, are concentrated in rural dis tricts which suffer from fiscal inequity.
"Fiscal inequity in the states thwarts the Federal Government in carrying out its role of assisting in meeting the special needs of disadvantaged students and in assuring equality of opportunity. Although Federal policy is premised on the belief that educa tional programs and services provided to students with state and local funds are 'comparable,' and that Federal funds are a supplement to meet special needs, this is not the case in many states. Federal funds are used in property-poor districts to meet needs that are routinely met through state and local expenditures in other districts. The value of Chapter 1 funds is often severely impaired in property-poor districts be cause the assistance can be used only to fund one important service while funds are not available to provide other vital services that are interdependent."
  
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