Does Equalizing School Funding Lead to More Equitable Outcomes?

Recent scholarship has begun to explore how the relationship between communities’ SES contexts and achievement differs across states, but we know little about how this relationship changes or factors which might strengthen or weaken it. In this study, Matheny will estimate changes in states’ “SES-achievement gradients,” or the extent to which district-level SES contexts predict achievement within each state. She will also estimate changes in states’ “SES-revenue gradients,” or the extent to which districts’ SES contexts predict district-level revenues. Finally, she will estimate the impact of making school funding more equitable on states’ SES-achievement gradients, hypothesizing that making school funding more equitable will increase the relative educational opportunities for low-income districts. This analysis will help inform research on the relationship between community SES context and educational outcomes as well as identify potential policies to reduce SES inequality in educational opportunities.