The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial entitled Rich schools, poor schools. This year, the General Assembly decided on a formula that generally sends more money to richer, suburban schools and less money to urban schools. The Journal Gazette quickly notes the problem with conservative legislators nice-sounding explanation that “the money follows the child.” Some kids cost more to educate:
Conservative legislators talk earnestly of how they changed the school funding formula so “the money follows the child,†a noble idea that has lots of difficulties in practice. In general, the 2005 General Assembly is sending more money to wealthier suburban districts at the expense of urban and rural districts. Urban districts may generally have declining enrollment, but the students they have are often more difficult to educate – more are poor, more are at risk of failing and more don’t speak English – and their education comes in older buildings that cost more to maintain.
If legislators want to abandon the notion that Indiana children in public schools should get a more or less equal opportunity, they should make it explicit instead of disingenuously shrugging off the inequities with simplistic explanations.
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