Biddle, Bruce, and David Berliner.

“A Research Synthesis / Unequal School Funding in the

United States.” Unequal School Funding in the United States - Educational Leadership,

Educational Leadership, May 2002, www.ascd.org/publications/educational-

leadership/may02/vol59/num08/Unequal-School-Funding-in-the-United-States.aspx.

Accessed 23 June 2019.

Authors Bruce Biddle and David Berliner wrote the article “A Research Synthesis /
Unequal School Funding in the United States,” that was published by Educational Leadership in
May of 2002. Bruce Biddle is an established Psychology and Sociology Professor Emeritus at
the University of Missouri, while David Berliner is a Regents’ Professor of Psychology in
Education at Arizona State University. Their thesis and main questions were what should we
believe about school funding and its impact? And given what we know today, what should we
do about inequities in funding for education in the United States? The article directly address
how public schools are funded in the US, and it turns out that nearly half of those funds come
from local property taxes (creates a large gap between low- and high-income areas). They
discuss how other countries handle their school funding, and they even take a look at a few other
studies and show what makes them good or bad. Some bad studies they saw had claims that
school funding had no effect on student performance. The strong studies using random surveys
and experiments showed that poverty and per-student revenues were associated with student
achievement. International studies showed that schools with the most impoverished students had
similar success rates and scores to those of the world’s lowest scoring nations. They discussed
why the funding gap is a problem, along with possible solutions to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, there are no great solutions because in order to fix the gap, someone will have to
pay more money for these students to get education. The authors’ purpose for writing this article
was to spread awareness of the funding gap, and also try to help create a solution to fix it. The
audience is to anyone that reads this and has children in the public school system. The article
was written by very educated college professors that study sociology and education in the US, so
that affects the source. The source satisfies all the criteria of CRAAP except the currency of the
article is slightly outdated, but it still has great information. I will use this information to address
how schools are funded, compare our lowest-income schools to the worst performing nations in
the world, and discuss how poverty is related to student achievement rate.

Hall, Daria, and Natasha Ushomirsky. “Close the Hidden Funding Gaps in Our Schools.” The

Education Trust, 2010. edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hidden-Funding-

Gaps_0.pdf.

The authors Daria Hall and Natasha Ushomirsky wrote the article “Close the Hidden
Funding Gaps in Our Schools,” published by the Education Trust in March of 2010. Their thesis
was “Many states have made progress in closing the funding gaps between affluent school
districts and those serving the highest concentrations of low-income children. But a hidden
funding gap between high-poverty and low-poverty schools persists between schools within the
same district. District budgeting policies frequently favor schools with the fewest low-income
students. This undercuts the aim of Title I and robs poor children of funds intended to help
them.” Daria Hall is the vice president of partnerships and engagements at the Education Trust.
she has previously been an analyst for Texas Legislature, and Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl.
Natasha is the State Director at the Education Trust and has also been the P-12 policy director
there as well, helping make policy and pursue agenda issues in education. This article describes
what funding gaps are, as you can see the average expenditure compared between students of
wealthy districts and poorer districts creates a deficit. They talk about how the gaps exists due to
the way our funding is set up, because most of it comes from local taxes. If your district has
low-income, and poor properties, they will not bring in as much money as wealthier districts.
They even show comparisons from other studies that show the difference in funding between the
national average per student, and low-income districts in New York. They end it by bringing up
ideas and ways to change the law on how schools are funded. The authors’ purpose was to push
for a change in school funding to help the children affected. The audience is anyone that will
read the article, especially those that vote and push for new legislation. The date is was written
doesn’t really affect it but writing about poor NYC schools can make the source seem localized
to the New York area. The source has adequate info because there is a long list of sources at the
bottom of the article. The info is all relevant and current, along with the authors being credible. I
will use the info on what funding gaps are to build the background of what I am talking about,
along with why they exist. I will use the examples of the NYC schools to help show in actual
numbers the effect of these gaps.

Huettl, Kelly. “The Relationship Between Poverty and Student Achievement.” St. Cloud

University, April, 2016.

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/961c/eb8470c075ec25208fc0252af7eceaadad88.pdf.

Kelly Huettl wrote “The Relationship between Poverty and Student Achievement” in
April of 2016, published by the University of St. Cloud. Huettl wrote this as her graduate school
paper for masters degree in curriculum and instruction. It was reviewed by all of her committee
chairmen. Her thesis question is “Does the research indicate a relationship between financial
stability of families and increased student achievement?” The paper then goes to break down
into what the gap is, how it affects achievement, other reasons for lower performance like
(ethnicity, language, parental involvement, school resources, summer setback, and overall
poverty effect). She then tries to come up with potential fixes for the problem. Her purpose for
this was to write a paper on a topic she cared about (education) while fulfilling her grad school
paper requirement. Her audience is anyone interested and the topic, and also the department
chairmen at her university. It is recent but being written in a university shows that she was a
wealthier class member, and likely never dealt with the problem of the funding gap. She has
many sources she cites throughout the paper. It fulfills the CRAAP requirements. I will use this
in my paper to break down different reasons stemming from low-income families that cause low
achievement.
Jackson, Kirabo et al. “The Effects of School Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes:

Evidence from School Finance Reforms.” The Quarterly Journals of Economics, vol.

131, issue 1, February 2016, doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv036.

Kirabo Jackson, Rucker Johnson, and Claudia Persico wrote “The Effects of School
Spending on Educational and Economic Outcomes: Evidence from School Finance Reforms” in
October of 2015, and it was published by The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Their general
question/thesis is does a school’s financial resources across neighborhoods affect the
achievement of students. All of the authors are doctorate professors at Northwestern University
and UC Berkeley. The article talks about their graduation rate, years of education, wages at 30
years old, adult family income, per pupil spending all compared between low and high-income
families. The author’s purpose was to try to create a change in how school funding is currently
run. They were targeting law makers, and anyone that would read the article. It was written
pretty recently, so that shouldn’t affect it, and it was written at prestigious schools, so they have
access to all the info they need to write the article, so it will have tons of sources (which it does)
to help argue its point. The article is recent, has credible authors and sources, and is precise. I
will use all of this info to help compare poor vs. higher income people.
Morgan, Ivy and Amerikaner, Ary. “An Analysis of School Funding Equity Across the U.S. and

Within Each State.” Funding Gaps 2018. The Education Trust, 27 February 2018.

edtrust.org/resource/funding-gaps-2018/. Accessed 21 June 2019.

Authors Ivy Morgan and Ary Amerikaner wrote the article “Funding Gaps 2018: An
Analysis of School Funding Equity Across the U.S. And Within Each State” in February 2018
and was published by the Education Trust. Their thesis and main statement are that districts with
the highest poverty rates don’t get more funding to account for the increased need, and too many
students do not get their fair share of education funding. Ivy Morgan is the associate director of
analytics at the Education Trust and conducts data analyses. Ary is Vice President for Policy,
Practice, and Research at the Education Trust. They talk about how poverty districts are
affected, and how much less funding they get. They found that poverty districts were receiving
$1000 less per student. A number that shocked me was if there were five thousand students in
that district, then that $5 million less in funds. They compare the average funding gap in each
state with Ohio being the second best at providing more money for impoverished students. They
also talk a little bit about how state distributes their money across the schools for funding. They
show that inequities don’t only affect impoverished families, but also districts with high
percentage of color students get less funding. In more than half of the states, districts with high
poverty rates don’t receive extra funding to accommodate those needs. The authors’ purpose
was to try and make a change to help educate more children equally. They were writing to
anyone that would read the article, and people getting their newsletters. It is really recent, so the
date reflects close to what is happening now. The authors used a tone of sources and data
research in their article, so it has adequate info, and also fulfills CRAAP. I will use this to
further talk about how much the gap affects students, and districts and show how large the gap
can become in larger districts.
Smith, Aaron and Unnamed Contributor. “School funding disparities should alarm all, not just

those who lean left.” The Hill. The Hill, 10 April 2019.

thehill.com/opinion/education/437669-school-funding-disparities-should-alarm-all-not-

just-those-who-lean-left. Accessed 21 June 2019.

Aaron Smith wrote the article “School funding disparities should alarm all, no just those
who lean left” in April of 2019, and was published on The Hill. There is no real thesis for this,
but his general ideas are good ways for policymakers to stop the funding gap. Dr. Aaron Smith
is an Economics professor at UC Davis. He is also the director of education reform at Reason
Foundation. The article talks about how people are moving their children into different districts
to get better education. He then goes on to explain how Indiana has basically eliminated
property tax (2009) as a way to pay for school and they now just are funded by state taxes.
Property taxes are still used to help build public and school buildings though. Now there is a set
per student amount that the government disperses to their schools, and this money follows the
child if they move elsewhere. This has increased the state’s ranking and test scores. This allows
for a better step towards funding, because the amount granted to schools is based on number of
students, not property value. The author’s purpose was to propose an idea that other states could
follow to help increase student performance. The audience is to lawmakers and people interested
in government news, because The Hill is a government news website. It is very recent, which
affects it because compared to my other sources, it has a lot of recent developments being made
to try and stop the funding gap. The author has adequate info, because he cited multiple studies,
government policies, and has access to a lot of sources. The source is reliable, because it is
recent, answers my questions, and all of the sources he cited can be linked to actual policies
made by lawmakers. I will use this source to help propose an idea on fixing the issue, along with
showing how new funding ways can work to solve the problem.
“South Korea: Governance and Accountability.” NCEE, National Center on Education and the

Economy, 2019, ncee.org/what-we-do/center-on-international-education-

benchmarking/top-performing-countries/south-korea-overview/south-korea-system-and-

school-organization/. Accessed 29 June 2019.

The article “South Korea: Governance and Accountability” was written and published by
writers at the National Center for Education and the Economy in 2019. This group collects data
on education throughout the world and evaluates performance. For 2018, South Korea had the
number one ranked education system. Their education is overseen by the Central Ministry of
Education. Their education is funded by approximately 75% government, and the rest is through
local and metropolitan funding. This is very different than the 50/50 split the US does for school
funding. South Korea also provides extra support for low-performing schools, to help boost their
performance (also not done by the US). This has led to a decline in low performance. This
provides extra funding to schools for supplies, teachers, and also parent and student counseling.
The teachers get rewards for having high performing students, which encourages the teachers to
do a better job (bonuses, more leadership roles, and study abroad opportunities). The author’s
purpose was to explain how South Korea funds their schools. They were targeting anyone that
wants to learn how they fund their schools. It is very recent, so it has up to date information on
the subject. The info is current, reliable, and helps me answer my research question. I will use
this to help compare the US education funding to the top outside country to see how we could
improve our education.