Re: public school funding and equity litigation

[Sarah Vanderwicken <vanderesq@MINDSPRING.COM>]

This link, summarizing litigation on school finance equity, is a terrific
resource.  Does anyone on ARN know of any similar summary of litigation
challenging high stakes tests?  Or even a listing of what litigation there
has been?  If not, could we develop one now?

----- Original Message -----
From: Dr. Aubrey H. Price <aprice@NEOCOMM.NET>
To: <ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: public school funding and equity litigation


> School equity cases at the state level have been the primary means of
> redressing inequity in school financing since the US Supreme Court refused
> to take the Texas case, San Antonio v. Rodrigues, in 1973. State Supreme
> Courts are the ultimate arbiters of the validity of these constitutional
> challenges. The site below is reasonably new and provides a good summary
of
> the issue.
>
> http://nces.ed.gov/edfin/litigation/Contents.asp
>
> I have seen Eric Hanushek mentioned in these exchanges. It should be noted
> that he has consistently argued and, indeed, testified against redress,
> basing his case on flawed education production function analyses that
> indicate money has no effect on student achievement. He deserves NO credit
> for anything positive in the reform of this insidious public policy
> inequity.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assessment Reform Network Mailing List
> [mailto:ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU]On Behalf Of KINDRED KEITH
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 3:03 PM
> To: ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU
> Subject: public school funding
>
> Can anyone on the list comment on the current state of the equity
> of school funding?  Jonathon Kozol's work, especially Savage
> Inequalities, demonstrated irrefutably the inequities of school
> funding, but that book is now eight or nine years old.  Have things
> changed -nationally or regionally-, even marginally?
>
> I moved to New York not even 6 months ago, so I'm not
> knowledgeable about the situation here.  I lived in Michigan before
> that and know that state passed a law in 1993/94 that changed the
> way schools were funded, shifting away from, though still relying
> on, property taxes - which, of course, is a major cause of the
> funding inequities.  Still, there are considerable variations in school
> funding, as districts are still permitted to pass local bonds.  Of
> course, those with money do so fairly frequently, so they have
> passed such special bonds for technology and building needs.  But
> I am reasonably sure that the 93/94 law has had some impact on
> reducing the inequities.  Is that true in other states?
>
> I'm curious about this becuase I see this issue as being
> inextricably tied to the standards/high stakes testing movement
> that is the focus of this list.  I am pretty new to the list, so perhaps
> you have discussed this recently.  Still, I am increasingly inclined
> to agree with Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Susan Ohanian and others who
> suggest that polticians (who enact education policy) have been
> coopted by business leaders and their agenda when it comes to
> the public schools.
>
> I teach now at a high school in New York in a fairly affluent district
> that is home to many mid-level IBM execs (ironic, considering my
> growing disgust with the standards/high stakes test movement and
> Lou Gerstner's role in getting that movement going nation-wide).
> The state curriculum is essentially a college prep one, which is fine
> with most of the parents here because that's where their kids are
> going and, ultimately, they want to see them get the managerial
> type jobs they currently have.  But even here, I see so many kids
> falling through the cracks.  And when I think about the facility
> where I teach (which is mostly brand new, technologically
> equipped, well supplied, pretty low class sizes, etc.) compared to
> the ones described in Kozol's book in New York City just 70 miles
> south of here, I feel a range of emotions - from guilt to anger to
> disgust.
>
> But as I see  the members of this list focus on high stakes tests, I
> can't help but wonder if we are igonoring the larger impetus for
> these tests.  The business agenda of gearing some kids (mostly
> white, well to do) for managerial postions and others (mostly non-
> white, poor/lower middle class) as a cheap source of manual/low
> tech labor drives the standards movement, which drives the tests.
> The funding inequities, in turn, is the financial base that propagates
> the entire system.  That is, getting back to my original point,
> unless the funding iequities are disappearing.  That would seem to
> blow a whole in this theory, at least as I have laid it out.  So who is
> in the know on this.  Are the funding inequities as bad as ever, or
> are things changing?
>
> Sorry so long winded,
>
> Keith Kindred
> Arlington High School
> Lagrangeville, New York
>
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