Strategy 10a: For public schools, follow the money
The way that public schools are funded in the United States makes choosing a good one relatively straightforward. Here’s the rule to follow if you want to enroll your child in a good public school: Move into the richest neighborhood that you can possibly afford. Well-run public schools in well-to-do neighborhoods in America may rival, or even surpass, the best private schools.i
If you are a parent who struggles to make ends meet, the rule is the same. Find the lowest-priced residence in the cheapest part of a wealthy neighborhood, and as long as the domicile is within the school’s attendance boundary zone, the school must accept your child as a student.ii
Once you identify the right school, an ideal situation would be finding a home within walking distance. Having the school nearby will save thousands of future trips in the car before your child learns to drive or is old enough to take the subway or bus by themselves. It also will save you from spending countless hours in long lines of cars, waiting to drop off or pick up your child.
Secondly, schools in rich neighborhoods tend to have fabulous playgrounds, so living near a school offers the advantage of having a handy, open play space available when your children are desperately energetic and want to “go play.” An added advantage: The school maintains and updates playgrounds regularly at no additional cost to you. Finally, close proximity to school will make involvement in school-based activities, such as open houses; sports events, music and theater performances; meetings with teachers, booster clubs, and the Parent-Teacher Association less cumbersome.
To reiterate, choose quality over convenience. Choose the best school over the most convenient school, even if the most convenient school happens to be next door and the best quality school is located across town.
The average breakdown for funding of public schools in the United States goes something like this (percentages vary depending on the state and locale in which you live):
• Federal contribution=8%
• State contribution=47%
• Local property taxes contribution=45%iii
Each state has its own formula for funding public schools. Because rich and poor public schools may receive comparable funding through federal and state allotments, often the differentiating factor is property taxes, which contribute, on average, 45% of the funds available for public schools. To put it succinctly: schools in rich areas have access to larger sums of money than those in poor areas.
Also, because children in wealthy schools tend to have influential, active, and wealthy parents, it is not unusual for booster groups in these neighborhoods to generate huge sums of money to support the arts, sports, field trips, or whatever is needed at school. The Center for American Progress estimates the contributions of parent-teacher organizations to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, with most of it being generated by the wealthiest public schools.iv
On average then, almost half of a school’s funding is contingent upon the relative wealth of the people who live in the neighborhood in which the school is located.
Disparities in school funding can be readily apparent. A quick drive through neighborhoods and a glance at school buildings and adjacent grounds can say much about the wealth of a neighborhood, as well as serve as an indicator of a school’s relative safety and academic reputation.
The way that public schools are funded in the United States makes choosing a good one relatively straightforward. Here’s the rule to follow if you want to enroll your child in a good public school: Move into the richest neighborhood that you can possibly afford. Well-run public schools in well-to-do neighborhoods in America may rival, or even surpass, the best private schools.i
If you are a parent who struggles to make ends meet, the rule is the same. Find the lowest-priced residence in the cheapest part of a wealthy neighborhood, and as long as the domicile is within the school’s attendance boundary zone, the school must accept your child as a student.ii
Once you identify the right school, an ideal situation would be finding a home within walking distance. Having the school nearby will save thousands of future trips in the car before your child learns to drive or is old enough to take the subway or bus by themselves. It also will save you from spending countless hours in long lines of cars, waiting to drop off or pick up your child.
Secondly, schools in rich neighborhoods tend to have fabulous playgrounds, so living near a school offers the advantage of having a handy, open play space available when your children are desperately energetic and want to “go play.” An added advantage: The school maintains and updates playgrounds regularly at no additional cost to you. Finally, close proximity to school will make involvement in school-based activities, such as open houses; sports events, music and theater performances; meetings with teachers, booster clubs, and the Parent-Teacher Association less cumbersome.
To reiterate, choose quality over convenience. Choose the best school over the most convenient school, even if the most convenient school happens to be next door and the best quality school is located across town.
The average breakdown for funding of public schools in the United States goes something like this (percentages vary depending on the state and locale in which you live):
• Federal contribution=8%
• State contribution=47%
• Local property taxes contribution=45%iii
Each state has its own formula for funding public schools. Because rich and poor public schools may receive comparable funding through federal and state allotments, often the differentiating factor is property taxes, which contribute, on average, 45% of the funds available for public schools. To put it succinctly: schools in rich areas have access to larger sums of money than those in poor areas.
Also, because children in wealthy schools tend to have influential, active, and wealthy parents, it is not unusual for booster groups in these neighborhoods to generate huge sums of money to support the arts, sports, field trips, or whatever is needed at school. The Center for American Progress estimates the contributions of parent-teacher organizations to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars nationwide, with most of it being generated by the wealthiest public schools.iv
On average then, almost half of a school’s funding is contingent upon the relative wealth of the people who live in the neighborhood in which the school is located.
Disparities in school funding can be readily apparent. A quick drive through neighborhoods and a glance at school buildings and adjacent grounds can say much about the wealth of a neighborhood, as well as serve as an indicator of a school’s relative safety and academic reputation.
Figure 10.1 features photos of two high schools in the Dallas area—Thomas Jefferson High and Highland Park High. The Highland Park School District is actually adjacent to Dallas Independent School District, so that students living on one street might go to a Highland Park school, while students living on the next street would attend a school such as Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson High has an illustrious heritage, though it was never an opulent school (top left). When the school was damaged by a tornado in 2019, it was moved into an abandoned, former junior high school (top right), Thomas Edison Junior High. As of this writing (three years later), the high school is still meeting in the old Thomas Edison Junior High Building and the tornado-damaged Thomas Jefferson has yet to reopen.v
Highland Park High School (bottom left) is located in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Texas. Highland Park has an impressive football stadium (bottom right), as well as multi-million-dollar indoor practice facilities for football and additional and additional, separate facilities for other sports.vi Indeed, the sports facilities at Highland Park are sufficiently posh that professional sports teams have asked to use the facilities on occasion when they are playing games in the area.vii
Figure 10.2 compares Highland Park and Dallas in terms of property taxes, violent crime, median income, and average SAT (Scholastic Achievement Test) scores.
Thomas Jefferson High has an illustrious heritage, though it was never an opulent school (top left). When the school was damaged by a tornado in 2019, it was moved into an abandoned, former junior high school (top right), Thomas Edison Junior High. As of this writing (three years later), the high school is still meeting in the old Thomas Edison Junior High Building and the tornado-damaged Thomas Jefferson has yet to reopen.v
Highland Park High School (bottom left) is located in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Texas. Highland Park has an impressive football stadium (bottom right), as well as multi-million-dollar indoor practice facilities for football and additional and additional, separate facilities for other sports.vi Indeed, the sports facilities at Highland Park are sufficiently posh that professional sports teams have asked to use the facilities on occasion when they are playing games in the area.vii
Figure 10.2 compares Highland Park and Dallas in terms of property taxes, violent crime, median income, and average SAT (Scholastic Achievement Test) scores.
Perhaps it might be surprising to learn that residents of the wealthy neighborhood of Highland Park pay a much lower property tax rate than households located outside of the school’s attendance zone. This bears repeating: The property tax rate in one of the richest areas of Texas is significantly lower than the property tax rate in one of the poorest areas of Texas. The property tax rates in Highland Park are lower because the values of the houses are so much higher. A 2% rate on a $5,000,000 house in Highland Park would generate $100,000 in property taxes; a 2% rate on a $50,000 house in a poor, Dallas neighborhood would generate only $1000.
In addition to a lower property tax rate, residents of Highland Park also experience less violent crime and students in Highland Park schools enjoy stellar S.A.T. scores, well above the national mean.
Meanwhile, households located in Dallas Independent School District, on average, earn about $157,000 less than households in Highland Park and they live in one of the most violent areas of the country.viii Students in Dallas post below-average SAT scores, but if their parents could somehow move across school boundary lines into Highland Park, the test scores of their children could possibly improve by hundreds of points, their property tax rates would fall, and they would be less troubled by crime.
Fifty years of data from the National Center for Education Statistics attest that schools in wealthy neighborhoods consistently have the following advantages:
1. Few disciplinary problems
2. High student achievement
3. Up-to-date technology
4. Better availability of counselors, librarians, nurses, support staff
5. Access to a more advanced and extensive curriculum
6. Safer, more modern building
In contrast, schools located in areas of high poverty may have to confront myriad challenges, beginning with the physical condition of the school, itself. Recent reports of urban schools located in poor neighborhoods have reported buildings with no heat during winter, unsafe water, rampant mold, poor ventilation, and animal and insect infestations.x
Schools in high-poverty neighborhoods tend to have older, less well-maintained buildings, fewer experienced teachers, more disciplinary problems, limited access to services, less up-to-date technology, and reduced access to an advanced curriculum, such as Advanced Placement courses in high school.xi
Because schools in wealthy neighborhoods have larger budgets, they can afford to pay slightly higher salaries.xii Thus, teachers and administrators who have been proven effective tend to migrate to safer, higher-achieving schools where they encounter fewer bureaucratic and community hassles and might enjoy higher pay or better benefits.xiii
Nationally, the top, high-achieving public schools are disproportionately suburban and affluent. Between 2000-2015, funding for most public schools remained static while funding for the top-performing public schools increased by more than 30%.xiv
Of course, funding for public schools is highly idiosyncratic; no two states or localities are alike. In terms of federal/state/local funding, consider differences in these four states:
California 9% federal/ 58% state/ 33% local
Michigan 9% federal/ 31% state/ 61% local
New York 5% federal/ 41% state/ 54% local
Texas 11% federal/39% state /50% local
One might think that disparities between rich and poor schools might be less obvious in states, such as California and Michigan, where the federal and state government combine to fund up to 70% of basic costs. Yet, even in these states, the local supplement plays a critical role in determining funding.
As in Texas, the lowest local property tax rates in California can be found in the state’s wealthiest neighborhoods. For example, the effective property tax rate of Palo Alto, the neighborhood surrounding Stanford University, is the lowest in the entire state,xv despite the fact that the median price of a home in Palo Alto is over three million dollars.xvi
The pattern becomes problematic in the poorest areas of California. For example, the property tax rate of Arvin, California, a humble, small city southeast of Bakersfield, where the average price of a house is only $185,250,xvii is more than triple the property tax rate of wealthy Palo Alto.xviii
As wealthy neighborhoods have gotten more expensive in California, poor areas have become even more impoverished. The phenomenon of taxing the poor at higher rates than the rich has become standard operating procedure throughout many parts of the United States. As property values decline in poor neighborhoods, taxes have to be raised just to keep school doors open. When property values soar in wealthy neighborhoods, taxes can be cut without reducing the money that goes to schools.
Figure 10.3 describes the neo-feudal, property tax phenomenon as it manifests in two cities in Michigan. Residents of the poorest city in the state, Detroit, actually pay more than double the property tax rate of residents of Rochester Hills, one of the wealthiest areas in the country.xix Not only is the tax rate higher in Detroit, the violent crime rate is more than 20 times the violent crime rate of Rochester Hills. Yet, median income in Detroit is $60,000 less and SAT scores are hundreds of points lower. Rochester Hills wins in all categories; Detroit loses in all categories, including the property tax rate.
In addition to a lower property tax rate, residents of Highland Park also experience less violent crime and students in Highland Park schools enjoy stellar S.A.T. scores, well above the national mean.
Meanwhile, households located in Dallas Independent School District, on average, earn about $157,000 less than households in Highland Park and they live in one of the most violent areas of the country.viii Students in Dallas post below-average SAT scores, but if their parents could somehow move across school boundary lines into Highland Park, the test scores of their children could possibly improve by hundreds of points, their property tax rates would fall, and they would be less troubled by crime.
Fifty years of data from the National Center for Education Statistics attest that schools in wealthy neighborhoods consistently have the following advantages:
1. Few disciplinary problems
2. High student achievement
3. Up-to-date technology
4. Better availability of counselors, librarians, nurses, support staff
5. Access to a more advanced and extensive curriculum
6. Safer, more modern building
In contrast, schools located in areas of high poverty may have to confront myriad challenges, beginning with the physical condition of the school, itself. Recent reports of urban schools located in poor neighborhoods have reported buildings with no heat during winter, unsafe water, rampant mold, poor ventilation, and animal and insect infestations.x
Schools in high-poverty neighborhoods tend to have older, less well-maintained buildings, fewer experienced teachers, more disciplinary problems, limited access to services, less up-to-date technology, and reduced access to an advanced curriculum, such as Advanced Placement courses in high school.xi
Because schools in wealthy neighborhoods have larger budgets, they can afford to pay slightly higher salaries.xii Thus, teachers and administrators who have been proven effective tend to migrate to safer, higher-achieving schools where they encounter fewer bureaucratic and community hassles and might enjoy higher pay or better benefits.xiii
Nationally, the top, high-achieving public schools are disproportionately suburban and affluent. Between 2000-2015, funding for most public schools remained static while funding for the top-performing public schools increased by more than 30%.xiv
Of course, funding for public schools is highly idiosyncratic; no two states or localities are alike. In terms of federal/state/local funding, consider differences in these four states:
California 9% federal/ 58% state/ 33% local
Michigan 9% federal/ 31% state/ 61% local
New York 5% federal/ 41% state/ 54% local
Texas 11% federal/39% state /50% local
One might think that disparities between rich and poor schools might be less obvious in states, such as California and Michigan, where the federal and state government combine to fund up to 70% of basic costs. Yet, even in these states, the local supplement plays a critical role in determining funding.
As in Texas, the lowest local property tax rates in California can be found in the state’s wealthiest neighborhoods. For example, the effective property tax rate of Palo Alto, the neighborhood surrounding Stanford University, is the lowest in the entire state,xv despite the fact that the median price of a home in Palo Alto is over three million dollars.xvi
The pattern becomes problematic in the poorest areas of California. For example, the property tax rate of Arvin, California, a humble, small city southeast of Bakersfield, where the average price of a house is only $185,250,xvii is more than triple the property tax rate of wealthy Palo Alto.xviii
As wealthy neighborhoods have gotten more expensive in California, poor areas have become even more impoverished. The phenomenon of taxing the poor at higher rates than the rich has become standard operating procedure throughout many parts of the United States. As property values decline in poor neighborhoods, taxes have to be raised just to keep school doors open. When property values soar in wealthy neighborhoods, taxes can be cut without reducing the money that goes to schools.
Figure 10.3 describes the neo-feudal, property tax phenomenon as it manifests in two cities in Michigan. Residents of the poorest city in the state, Detroit, actually pay more than double the property tax rate of residents of Rochester Hills, one of the wealthiest areas in the country.xix Not only is the tax rate higher in Detroit, the violent crime rate is more than 20 times the violent crime rate of Rochester Hills. Yet, median income in Detroit is $60,000 less and SAT scores are hundreds of points lower. Rochester Hills wins in all categories; Detroit loses in all categories, including the property tax rate.
The vast differences in school quality found between schools located in rich and poor neighborhoods in Michigan, California and Texas are not unusual, but are the norm nationwide.xx
Public schools in New York follow similar patterns, with richer schools benefiting from an array of factors—more money, higher achievement, better school infrastructure, less crime, fewer problems, and lower property tax rates. However, the focus of Figure 10.4 is on characteristics of students and teachers in two schools—one poor and one middle class.
Public schools in New York follow similar patterns, with richer schools benefiting from an array of factors—more money, higher achievement, better school infrastructure, less crime, fewer problems, and lower property tax rates. However, the focus of Figure 10.4 is on characteristics of students and teachers in two schools—one poor and one middle class.
In schools that educate large numbers of students living in poverty, such as Poughkeepsie High, student absenteeism and the number of students with disabilities tend to be higher than in wealthy or middle-class schools, like Jericho. States allocate money to schools based upon attendance rates, so high absenteeism inevitably leads to lower funding.
Because children with special needs can cost three times as much to educate as non-special needs children, a higher incidence of special needs children translates into fewer instructional dollars spent on students who are not in special education.xxi Special education, by law, must secure the “least restrictive environment” for each child and providing the least restricted environment can be quite expensive.xxii
In addition, poor schools are three times more likely to employ new and out-of-field or uncertified teachers, while middle class schools, like Jericho High School, tend to retain experienced teachers, who are more likely to be certified in the subject areas they are assigned to teach.xxiii Inexperienced teachers are “often assigned to schools that teachers with more seniority avoid.”xxiv
Undoubtedly, superb schools exist in poor neighborhoods, but with the current system of funding, the probability of finding a great school decreases as the wealth of a neighborhood declines. Ohio rates every school in the state using a ranking system of A to F, with A being the highest possible score and F the lowest. In a recent year, the state rated all of their wealthiest schools as deserving an A or B and rated most of their poorest schools as F. None of the poorest schools received an A; only 4% of the poorest schools received a B.xxv
Again, the best advice for selecting a great public school in the U.S. is to “follow the money.”
Story
Parents who understand the value of a good education can go to great lengths to get their children enrolled in the right public school. Kelly Williams Bolar was a parent with two daughters who lived in central Akron, one of the poorest areas of Ohio.xxvi The neighborhood near her children’s public school was not only low-performing, it was located in an area of high crime and violence. Kelly’s father lived in Copley, Ohio, in a lovely, safe neighborhood near an affluent public school named Copley-Fairlawn Middle School.
Using her father’s address, Kelly enrolled her two daughters in Copley-Fairlawn and they performed quite well.xxvii However, the school discovered the ruse and asked the police to arrest Kelly for “grand theft” for trying to “steal” an education for her children.xxviii The judge in the case found Kelly guilty and sentenced her to two concurrent five-year-terms in prison. After Kelly spent nine days in jail and after a flood of negative national media attention, then-governor John Kasich reduced the felony convictions to misdemeanors.xxix
Kelly Williams-Bolar understood the value of a good education, so deserves kudos for trying to place her children in a high-quality school. However, because most public schools are reliant upon property taxes for their funding, they tend to be vigilant about restricting enrollment to individuals who actually live within school boundary lines. Certainly, the system as it currently exists is stacked against poor families who lack mobility.
If Kelly could have found a modest place to live within the Copley school district, there would have been no case and no trial. With the way the current system works in most states, for parents who want their child to attend a great public school, sometimes moving is the only option.
Because children with special needs can cost three times as much to educate as non-special needs children, a higher incidence of special needs children translates into fewer instructional dollars spent on students who are not in special education.xxi Special education, by law, must secure the “least restrictive environment” for each child and providing the least restricted environment can be quite expensive.xxii
In addition, poor schools are three times more likely to employ new and out-of-field or uncertified teachers, while middle class schools, like Jericho High School, tend to retain experienced teachers, who are more likely to be certified in the subject areas they are assigned to teach.xxiii Inexperienced teachers are “often assigned to schools that teachers with more seniority avoid.”xxiv
Undoubtedly, superb schools exist in poor neighborhoods, but with the current system of funding, the probability of finding a great school decreases as the wealth of a neighborhood declines. Ohio rates every school in the state using a ranking system of A to F, with A being the highest possible score and F the lowest. In a recent year, the state rated all of their wealthiest schools as deserving an A or B and rated most of their poorest schools as F. None of the poorest schools received an A; only 4% of the poorest schools received a B.xxv
Again, the best advice for selecting a great public school in the U.S. is to “follow the money.”
Story
Parents who understand the value of a good education can go to great lengths to get their children enrolled in the right public school. Kelly Williams Bolar was a parent with two daughters who lived in central Akron, one of the poorest areas of Ohio.xxvi The neighborhood near her children’s public school was not only low-performing, it was located in an area of high crime and violence. Kelly’s father lived in Copley, Ohio, in a lovely, safe neighborhood near an affluent public school named Copley-Fairlawn Middle School.
Using her father’s address, Kelly enrolled her two daughters in Copley-Fairlawn and they performed quite well.xxvii However, the school discovered the ruse and asked the police to arrest Kelly for “grand theft” for trying to “steal” an education for her children.xxviii The judge in the case found Kelly guilty and sentenced her to two concurrent five-year-terms in prison. After Kelly spent nine days in jail and after a flood of negative national media attention, then-governor John Kasich reduced the felony convictions to misdemeanors.xxix
Kelly Williams-Bolar understood the value of a good education, so deserves kudos for trying to place her children in a high-quality school. However, because most public schools are reliant upon property taxes for their funding, they tend to be vigilant about restricting enrollment to individuals who actually live within school boundary lines. Certainly, the system as it currently exists is stacked against poor families who lack mobility.
If Kelly could have found a modest place to live within the Copley school district, there would have been no case and no trial. With the way the current system works in most states, for parents who want their child to attend a great public school, sometimes moving is the only option.