Washington lawmakers and public school advocates in our state refuse to face a simple fact: Our public school funding model is not progressive and fails to provide extra resources where they are needed most.
As in many states, Washington leaders recognize deficiencies in our public school funding model and are considering an overhaul. Several working groups are considering solutions. Advocates have highlighted different “funding gaps,” including special education and funding for curricular materials, transportation and insurance. The funding gap that leaders appear less concerned about is the one between the wealthy and the working class.
How did we get here? We sometimes fail to understand school systems within their broader sociopolitical context and history. Our public schools are highly segregated by race and class. In every major U.S. metropolitan area, school segregation reflects residential segregation, itself the result of racial redlining and unfair loan policies enacted by the federal government and carried out by local banks. Also responsible are racially restrictive covenants in property deeds, put in place from the 1920s-1960s and legally enforceable in many places up until the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
The result? Some school districts serve children of well-off parents, who have benefited from our country’s economic system for generations. Other school districts are in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty, which can present challenges for schools. Low-income areas have heavier law enforcement presence and more frequent policing, less access to basic healthcare, fewer basic services like grocery stores and public transit, fewer parks and green spaces, and fewer early learning and preschool centers. Since the 1970s, city, state and federal governments have consistently underinvested in neighborhoods that have much to offer.
Consider the substantial socioeconomic and racial segregation across school districts in King County alone. Tukwila, Federal Way, Highline, Auburn and Kent all serve communities where the child poverty rate exceeds 12% — 1 in every 8 children live below the federal poverty line. In each of these districts more than 50% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Within a 30-minute drive north up Interstate 5 are Mercer Island, Lake Washington and Northshore, school districts where the child poverty rates are under 4% and fewer than 20% of students qualify for free meals.
Yet, under the state’s public school finance system, these wealthier school districts receive about $1,000 more per student in state and local revenues compared to higher-poverty districts in King County. When looking at total per-student spending, which includes federal dollars, South King County districts slightly outspend their neighboring districts on average, but federal dollars are supposed to supplement an equitable system, not fill holes left behind from regressive allocation of state and local dollars.
This isn’t just a problem in the Seattle area; it’s a pattern across the state. For example, in the Yakima, Toppenish, Grandview, Wapato and Granger school districts, about 90% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Each of those districts receives about $17,000 or less per student in state and local revenues. Less than an hour’s drive north is Ellensburg, Cle Elum and White Salmon, all of which serve student populations for which fewer than 50% of students are classified as low-income, and all of these districts receive more than $17,000. A progressive system based on student need would send substantially more state dollars to the state’s highest-poverty districts.
The basic ideal in this country that all children have equal opportunity to reach their highest potential requires that governments invest in historically underserved neighborhoods, school districts and populations. Many states have altered their school funding models to make this a reality. The Education Trust ranks Washington state 29th in the country in terms of public school funding equity, a measure of how much additional funding is sent to higher-poverty areas and districts that serve higher shares of students of color.
Money matters, but school can’t do it all. If there were two key findings the public should glean from decades of research on education finance and policy, they are the following: First, money matters. The research community has reached consensus that increases in school funding, particularly when targeted to higher-need areas and effective programs, leads to long-term positive impacts for students well into adulthood. Most people can point to a school or district with high spending and poor outcomes. Or a time trend showing increasing spending and declining test scores postpandemic. I’m not talking about outliers or shoddy analysis. The best research available tells us that school investments improve students outcomes, particularly when allocated to higher-need areas.
But schools alone can’t undo generations of underinvestment and inequitable policies. The historian Harvey Kantor refers to the seductive fallacy as “educationalizing” the social safety net. Reducing inequality requires an all-hands-on-deck approach: Lowering healthcare costs, making housing and childcare affordable, fixing the state’s upside-down tax policies and ensuring Washington’s Fortune 500 companies pay their fair share of taxes. Most important, reducing inequality is everyone’s responsibility — and a more just and equal society is a benefit to all.
