Funding Inequalities In Education

For a long time the US government has tried to fill up funding gaps between students from rich and poor school districts. Yet this issue is still alarming in some states. Different researches have shown among all states, Pennsylvania has the highest disparity. Since 1991, the gap has widened due to previous budget cuts in education funding over the last years. These budget cuts have brought many inconveniences, and worsened the disparity between wealthy and high-poverty school districts in the present time. Pennsylvania’s low-income students are the most affected by the unequal funding. According to a study by the Education Trust, poor school districts from Pennsylvania receive 17% or $2,491 less per student than low-poverty districts. Pennsylvania‘s school funding is known for having 33 percent of funding inequality which ranks at the highest …show more content…
David Rusk , author of the article “ Pennsylvania schools funding gap worst in the nation”, explained one of the reasons why Pennsylvania has fallen into the category of state with the worst school funding inequality, “If schools rely completely on local taxpayers rather than the state, funding gaps arise because of the disparities in the ability of wealthy, middle-income, and poor districts to provide school funds” In other words, the inequalities in education occur because poor schools have a higher reliance on money from local property taxes than low-poverty