Equitable Funding

All of us care that children receive the best schooling they can, and the notion of equal access for all to quality is just basic fairness. To hear students at one school have more funding than students at another is disturbing.

Most often in our school district, when I hear this statement and ask what people mean, they explain they want to know "Why White Oaks School has more parent fundraising dollars than others?"

The culture of giving that is so widespread in the White Oaks community is the same culture of giving the San Carlos Education Foundation is working to develop. I support all efforts to make the pie bigger.

The concept of equitable spending should be considered through several lenses because there are many fairness tests.

Let's look at:

Some of these actually imply a need for inequitable spending in the interest of fairness.
I suspect there are more tests should a full effort be made to generate them. It strikes me as unreasonable to focus on any one without considering all. In fact, school board members consider principles of equity often as they act collectively. To study data on each of these fairness "lenses" would be a worthwhile exercise for our district staff. The board should then develop operating principles around equity in the interest of achievement.