Cameron Elementary School located in Virginia and Ponderosa Elementary in North Carolina are similar in many ways. They are about the same size, and both enroll a high percentage of low-income students of color. The bulk of students at both schools qualify for free-or-reduced price lunch. Both struggle to meet performance goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act.
There is one notable difference.
Cameron receives more than twice as much government funding as Ponderosa to educate its children.
Under Title I, a federal funding program which provides money to school districts with high concentrations of poor students, schools in wealthy states receive more funds than schools of the same size in poor states, according to new a report released by Education Sector, an independent think tank based in Washington.
“At every level of government — federal, state, and local — policymakers give more resources to students who have more resources, and less to those who have less," states the report. “These funding disparities accumulate as they cascade through multiple layers of government, with the end result being massive disparities between otherwise similar schools.”
Last year, Cameron, located in Virginia’s wealthy Fairfax County, received $14,040 per low-income student from all three level of government. Ponderosa received $6,773 per low-income student.
This difference in funding creates problematic disparities.
At Cameron, class sizes in kindergarten and the first and second grades are kept at 15 students or less. Veteran teachers earn an average salary of $62,533, well above the national average of $47,602. Math and reading specialists provide full-time support to both teachers and students, a stark contrast from Ponderosa, the report states.
At Ponderosa class sizes are in the mid-20s, not 15 or below. The teachers often are inexperienced and leave only a few years after being hired, the report states. The school could use more math and reading specialists to help meet NCLB performance goals. Test scores lag behind state norms, with barely half of third-graders proficient in math.
