Missouri Public School Funding

The financing of the American public school system has long been understood as a challenging process and one within which there have been any number of controversies (Podgursky and Springer 32). Like many other states, Missouri has experienced several rounds of school finance litigation, most of which has been focused on questions related to equality and equity or the degree to which the Missouri formula for allocating funds to public schools is fair and just (Podgursky, Smith, and Springer 175).

At issue herein are questions regarding the issue of equality in the financial system used to provide resources to Missouri's public schools. An overview of the issue and its history, an analysis of both sides of the arguments being advanced, and a personal response to the issue will be presented.

The plaintiffs in the recent Missouri litigation are three groups of school districts, 264 in all, that represent about 60 percent of the state's pubic school enrollment (Podgursky et al. 174). Each group of school districts has advanced the argument that the formula used by the state to allocate funds is neither equitable nor equal. The defendants in the 2007 case, which was the most recent in a series of cases, include various state officials and the Missouri Board of Education. Podgursky et al. (175) contend that "in practice, the real defendant was the state legislature, which crafted the school finance law."

The issue of school finance in Missouri is not new. Accord

Related Essays

Dual Mission of Magnet Schools .... Rights and Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy studies focused on three large school districts: St .... Louis, Missouri, Cincinnati, Ohio and Nashville, Tennessee .... (2247 9 )

Administrators Perceptions of School Vouchers .... from 362 school districts in a seven-state area (Missouri, Iowa, South .... costs of educating their children in either a public or a private school (Kober, 1996 .... (3567 14 )

Desegregation of Higher Education in Deep South .... to be admitted to the University of Missouri Law School .... Whether such an increase in funding is necessary to a .... in the past in segregated public school systems. .... (5736 23 )

Academic Freedom .... a professor emeritus with the Graduate School of Education .... more liberal than the general public is a .... addition, the sponsor of the Missouri legislation recently .... (4228 17 )

The Public Figure Doctrine and Professionals Thi .... radio show, and books." In cases involving school administrators, courts .... For instance, a federal court in Missouri held a physician to be a public figure for .... (4511 18 )

re that the government spend no more than 25 percent of state revenues for funding public schools and, as long as the state was in compliance with that mandate, it could be perceived as doing its job appropriately. Podgursky and Springer (31-32) contend that Missouri school districts continue to complain about a lack of equity in funding allocation. These researchers state that Missouri has a highly skewed distribution of students across districts. Some districts have high concentrations of students whereas others are more sparsely populated. This inevitably means that there will be a disparity in the amount of funding provided to each school. Podgursky and Springer (33) also point out that the issue hinges not necessarily on the distribution of resources among school districts but among students. Unfortunately, discussions of school finance and equity are seen as conflating the two. Missouri suffers from significant intra-district inequalities in the urban districts of the state. One such inequality "arises from the use of salary schedules for teachers that set base pay entirely on the basis of years of seniority and graduate credits or degrees...Because schools with students with higher socioeconomic status are genera

Category: History - M