How are educational resources allocated? This question plagues school districts throughout the country and is filled with political and social ramifications that can lead to unforeseen and unpleasant outcomes. In their book The Measurement of Equity in School Finance, Berne and Stiefel attempt to provide those concerned with education equity tools with which to make better decisions. The authors do not purport to be able to offer absolute answers to the equity issue, but do hope to offer the reader a better understanding of the equity concept, and better measurements with which to gauge the effectiveness of funding strategies. This research examines the first five chapters of the work, which cover the authors' theoretical framework and the measurements they use to analyze specific equity situations.
Berne and Stiefel believe that the importance of equity in the nation's schools will become more important as the amount of funding available to schools decreases. So long as funding is increasing and interested constituencies receive additional monies, there is unlikely to be much distributional concern, even though the funding may be distributed in what some perceive as an inequitable manner. However, once the funding begins to shrink and interested parties are left to compete for smaller amounts of money, the method of distribution can become a highly contentious issue (2).
The authors also suggest that vertical equity could be affected depending on the federal government's funding strategy. Vertical equity is defined as the "appropriately unequal treatment of unequals" (2). For example, federal funds during the 1960s and 1970s were largely tied to specific purposes, such as compensatory education, aid for handicapped students and aid for vocational education. So long as these monies are spent by schools per their original intention, these students are the ones who benefit in relation to other students. However, if the fe...