Brown vs. Board of Education - 50 Years Later
It has been 50 years since the United States Supreme Court unanimously decided that separate educational facilities were - by definition - not equal. Since that time, segregation by race has been illegal. It was felt that by merging the two systems, the quality of education for blacks would be brought up to that previously provided to whites.
Since that time, the phenomena of white flight has resulted in whites moving to the suburbs leaving most blacks in urban areas with decreased tax revenue and schools with decreased funding for both facilities and teachers. Where desegregation was intended to create school populations that better represent black and white local populations, it has, but not in the manner that was envisioned. With white middle classes having moved to the suburbs, so have tax dollars leaving predominantly black inner city schools in dire straits. Recent state supreme court rulings have also pointed out the inequities in this method of school funding.
A new approach to school funding must be created. I suggest that school funding be moved to the state level where equal per-pupil funding could be better achieved. The monies for this funding proposal would not require new taxes, but a realignment of existing tax revenues. Since most school districts are funded primarily through property taxes, a percentage of these taxes would instead be collected by a statewide agency for distribution to each local school district for funding of local schools. Differences in funding would have to be made for both special education students and cost-of-living differences within some larger states. In this way, per-pupil school spending would be equal across all school districts within a state regardless of an individual community's available tax base.
05/23/04 ( 500 )
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