Oliver
Let’s say there are two schools in a community. We’ll call them Lafayette and West Seattle. They each have 100 students and the state gives each school $1 per student. It costs $75 to operate the building at West Seattle and $80 at Lafayette. That means WS has has $25 left over for everything else and Lafayette has $20 left over. And “left over” means teacher salaries, text books, and so-called enrichment (arts, music, foreign language). WS has students that have language barriers and came to kindergarten with less access to pre-k readiness programs. So, prioritization means all of the $25 of the “left over” goes to address those issues. Lafayette doesn’t (pre-new boundaries) have a population of recent immigrants and low income families, so $20 of left over can go to enrichment and advanced learning. Lafayette also has a strong PTA which raises $50 extra to fund additional programs; WS does not have that luxury. WS enrollment drops to 10 fewer students and now only gets $80 from the state and it still takes $75 to operate the building. WS now has $5 left over, meaning there is no money to fund anything but the most critical needs. At the same time, enrollment at Lafayette increases by 10, so it now has an additional $10 for additional enrichment. Overtime, the disparities and funding gaps increase as long as we continue to focus on “per-pupil” spending.
It’s an over-simplicfication, for sure, but easily demonstrates how per-pupil funding is anything but an equal measure and in no way addresses actual costs.