Note how the problem has worsened over the past four decades. At issue in Rodriguez was a system that resulted in some school districts in the state spending twice as much per pupil as others. The case involved the constitutionality of Texas’s school financing scheme, which was similar to the one used today in Illinois and in almost every state in the nation. Is this constitutional? The Supreme Court considered this question in 1973 in Rodriguez. But here it is the state itself that facilitates this discrimination. It would be bad enough if individuals used their private wealth to send their privileged children to private schools to ensure that they never have to compete with others on an equal basis. The system exacerbates inequality and defeats the notion that in America every person has a fair chance to succeed. This “local control” is backed up by the power of the state, which effectively reinforces the advantages of wealth and perpetuates the disadvantages of poverty from one generation to the next. Predictably, school districts with wealthy residents spend much more per student on average than school districts with poor residents. Instead, school districts have vastly different capacities to generate revenue from the property tax, and this correlates in significant degree with the wealth, class, and race of the residents of each district. Of course, if each school district in the state had an equal capacity to raise educational funds through its property tax, this system might make sense. ![]() They then permit each school district to use its local property tax to raise additional funds as they choose. Most states provide a modest amount of state funds to each school district-enough, in theory, to provide each child with a minimal-otherwise known as “adequate”-education. Why on earth would we do such a thing? The answer is simple. Unsurprisingly, these variations in per pupil expenditures affect the quality of education-and the lives-of these children forever. The state is therefore spending more than four times as much per pupil on students in some districts than it is spending on students in other districts. Per pupil expenditures across the state’s elementary schools, however, range from a high of $28,500 to a low of $6,400. The average per pupil expenditure for elementary school students in Illinois is approximately $11,600 per year. But the variation across the state is staggering. My own state of Illinois is more or less in the middle of the pack among all states in per pupil expenditures. If disparities in per pupil expenditures were small, this might not be a big deal. According to a recent study, for example, a 10 percent increase in per pupil expenditures generates a 4 percent increase in graduation rates. The correlation is especially robust in the lower grades, when students are in their formative years. There is a strong, though not perfect, correlation between dollars spent per pupil and student education outcomes (measured by such factors as dropout rates, high school graduation rates, scores on standardized tests, etc.). The problem, quite simply, is inequality of resources. In so doing, it declined to address a fundamental problem that has undermined American public education ever since. Rodriguez, the Court held that there is no constitutional right to an equal education. In a hotly contested 5-to-4 decision in San Antonio Independent School District v. ![]() This is due, in no small part, to a relatively obscure 1973 decision of the U.S. The state of public education in the United States is widely acknowledged to be little short of disastrous.
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