AFT affiliates are helping in the fight to bring fairness and equity to school financing systems

By Christina Bartolomeo

During the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) struck a chord with voters when he spoke of “two Americas”—one for the wealthy and privileged, another for those not so lucky. A key example Edwards cited was the nation’s public schools.

A recent Harris poll of more than 3,300 teachers supports Edwards’ conclusion. Commissioned by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, the poll found that teachers in poor school districts struggle with more turnover, fewer textbooks, and older, unsafe buildings, compared to their peers in wealthier districts. These results, and the picture they paint of a “rich district/poor district” divide, come as no surprise to AFT leaders fighting to end the injustices inherent in America’s school financing system.

“In some poorer New York City districts, class sizes are at 30 to 35 students versus 15 to 25 for the rest of the state,” notes Alan Lubin, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), which has fought for more than a decade to reform the state’s school financing structure. “Some buildings are so old that if they had computers, there would be no plugs to plug them into. There’s no money for supplies. Individual teachers are spending thousands of dollars a year out of their own pockets,” says Lubin.

Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers (PaFT) executive director John Tarka knows how funding inequities are reflected in the classroom. “Take the county I live in, Allegheny County,” he says. “It includes some districts with every possible program, every tool and textbook, great class-size ratios, AP courses. These districts have those things because they have a strong tax base.” On the other hand, Tarka points out, a poor district in Allegheny County, like Wilkinsburg, “has virtually no tax base. Districts like Wilkinsburg are struggling just to stay afloat. They have larger class sizes, lower teacher salaries and not enough textbooks.”

Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Healthcare Professionals (RIFTHP) president Marcia B. Reback describes the city of Providence as a typical example of an underfunded urban district, one hit hard by a $25 million funding shortfall for 2004-05. “The state gave Providence no new funds, even though 600 more students came into the system,” says Reback, who is an AFT vice president. “The school social worker program was cut entirely. Providence had the benefit of the corporate community donating musical instruments to start school bands and orchestras. But the city had to cut its instrumental music programs. The instruments had to be given back.”

How is it that in a nation which holds educational opportunity as a cherished democratic ideal, a child’s street address can make such a difference in his or her schooling? The answer is rooted in the American financing system’s over-reliance on property taxes. According to 2003 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, local taxes on average account for 43 percent of U.S. districts’ funding. In a system so dependent on property wealth, schools inevitably mirror the prosperity—or lack of it—in their surrounding communities.

Exacerbating these inequities has been the failure of the nation’s highest court to address the issue. Equalization advocates’ hopes of a wide-reaching decision were dashed in 1973, when the Court ruled in Rodriguez v. San Antonio Independent School District that education was not a right explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution. The battle then shifted to state courts because most state constitutions, unlike the U.S. Constitution, contain language describing a state’s obligations regarding public education.

Challenging state financing systems

Starting with a series of cases in California in the early 1970s, funding reform advocates have challenged the constitutionality of more than 45 states’ school financing systems. But, while such lawsuits have significantly changed a scattering of systems (including those in Kentucky, Missouri and New Jersey), court orders often have come up against legislatures’ reluctance to enact real reform—a reluctance intensified by the state fiscal crises of the last few years.

Commenting on Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol’s 1991 expose´ of the appalling learning conditions in poor districts, then-AFT president Albert Shanker said that the book should inspire “outrage and action.” Today, AFT state federations continue to act, pursuing legal, legislative and grass-roots strategies aimed at remaking school financing systems in the name of justice and opportunity.

New York is an example. The state has seen more than a decade of litigation arising from a 1993 lawsuit challenging the state constitutionality of its school funding system, brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), a nonprofit coalition of parent, citizen, education and advocacy groups that includes the United Federation of Teachers in New York City. The state, the lawsuits charged, was not meeting the obligation stated in its constitution to provide children with “a sound, basic education.”

In June 2003, the New York state Court of Appeals ordered the Legislature to restructure the funding system by July 30, 2004. The Legislature missed the deadline. Now, restructuring will be handed over to a three-person “masters” committee appointed by the court.

“Raising additional revenue is the only way to solve this,” NYSUT’s Alan Lubin, an AFT vice president, says. “We think the state can fund additional education revenues without raising taxes for working people. One approach, he says, would be to close corporate loopholes and raise taxes for people making more than $250,000. Working closely with coalitions such as the statewide Alliance for Quality Education, NYSUT will prod the state Legislature to move forward on restructuring the funding system, Lubin adds.

In Texas, a 1993 funding equalization law (known as the Robin Hood law) reallocated funds from the state’s 130 richest school districts to its poorest districts. But even under the Robin Hood system, the richest district in Texas can spend up to $1,000 on average more per pupil than the poor districts, says Eric Hartman, legislative director for the Texas Federation of Teachers. “This spending discrepancy can add up to as much as $1 million more per school.”

The TFT plans to file an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in an August 2004 lawsuit challenging both the adequacy and equity of school funding levels.

TFT also recently fought off legislative attempts to tie additional school funding to punitive “pay for performance” schemes linking teacher compensation to student achievement.

The TFT has gone to creative lengths to raise public awareness of the funding issue. A few years ago, the local in Dallas gave its building reps cameras so they could document the unsafe physical settings in many Dallas schools, recalls Hartman. “They photographed leaking roofs, stained ceilings, crumbling school buildings.” The local used the photos in a successful bond issue campaign. Unfortunately, in these tight economic times, bond issues often fail to pass. TFT will produce a study this fall estimating the economic investment the state must make to provide all students a quality education.

In Ohio, school funding cases (known as the DeRolph cases) have resulted in four state Supreme Court decisions since 1991, all reaffirming the unconstitutionality of the school financing system. (School funding disparities are easily substantiated in the state; in the 2003-04 school year, there was a 3-1 disparity in per pupil spending between Ohio’s richest and poorest district.) Sadly, changes in the court’s makeup led to a 2002 decision in which the court declared the state school financing system unconstitutional yet simultaneously abandoned jurisdiction over the case.

Spurred by the high court’s failure to enforce the DeRolph decisions, the Ohio Federation of Teachers is redoubling its efforts in the political and legislative arena.

“Even where a court order exists, you have to build the political will to continue to fund education over time, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” observes Ohio Federation of Teachers president and AFT vice president Tom Mooney. The OFT has locals in one of the richest and one of the poorest districts within Ohio. Mooney notes that funding makes a significant difference in class size, textbooks, computers and lab equipment—and in teacher salaries. “We have locals with starting salaries of $25,000 and some with $35,000. There’s an even greater difference at the top.”

The OFT is strongly supporting grass-roots coalition campaigns (including the Ohio Fair Schools Campaign and Project Chalkboard) pressuring the Legislature for school finance reform. The state federation also is working to elect candidates who will support equitable school funding and the tax reforms necessary to raise much-needed education revenues. A recent study commissioned by the Ohio Department of Education estimated that Ohio would have to increase its education budget by more than $1.4 billion, or 11 percent, to meet the performance mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Legislative action and community advocacy

The state Supreme Courts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island consistently have rejected constitutional challenges to school financing systems. AFT leaders in those states are resolved to work through other channels to effect reform.

The Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers “is pursuing legislative and community advocacy since court avenues have been closed,” says Tarka. “But it’s a problem trying to get a Republican Legislature to address this issue. [It has] been more interested in private schools, vouchers, and charter schools.”

Nevertheless, the PaFT is working in a legislative coalition with administrator groups, school districts and businesses, and it participates in the Alliance for School Aid Partnership, which is developing strategies to address the equity problem.

The Rhode Island state federation is staunchly advocating school financing reforms in a season of severe state-funding shortfalls. “Rhode Island used to have a 60/40 state/local funding formula. Now it’s the reverse,” says Reback. “We’re the fourth state from the bottom in allocation of state funds to support education.”

The strategy? Joining with allies. “We’ve been working in an informal arena with the leadership of the business community and the mayors of suburban and urban ring districts where there is poverty,” Reback notes. “Business leaders see the importance of education and have invited labor to the table on this issue.”

RIFTHP also is lobbying for an equitable formula for state aid to education, a formula that gives extra weight to children with special needs. As a first step, RIFTHP worked with the AFL-CIO, the NEA, and business groups to pass a 2004 bill creating a legislative commission on state aid to education that will review state funding formulas and outline the components of a fair and equitable education. “It’s an excellent start,” says Reback.

AFT leaders express determination—and righteous anger—about funding-related injustices.

Says PaFT’s Tarka, “You hear some so-called experts say money doesn’t make a difference—they don’t know what they’re talking about. There’s a clear correlation between a district’s fiscal stability and state test scores. The poorer districts and the kids who live in them just can’t keep up with the rest. The cycle is predetermined and tragic. There’s no one-shot fix, but there are solutions we can fight for.”

Mooney points to the irony of funding disparities at a time when the bar is being raised for all students. “With state and NCLB standards, we’ve gone beyond espousing an ideal of educational opportunity for all. We now have, under law, a mandate. Ohio standards and federal law require that all students pass the same tests. But we are not being given the money by any stretch of the imagination to meet these mandates. It’s indefensible.”

Meanwhile, Reback puts it this way: “We know the conditions are out there because kids’ learning conditions are the same as teachers’ working conditions. There’s such a concept as doing the right thing, and it applies here.”