The Changing Distribution of Education Finance: 1972 -1997

In this paper we show that while significant inequality remains, we have in fact made a great deal of progress in reducing some of the glaring disparities Jonathan Kozol described in his book Savage Inequalities. In Section III of this paper, we look at several measures of inequality in spending across school districts. All of these measures follow a similar pattern. All show a sharp decline in inequality through 1982. As the recession took hold, inequality increased between 1982 and 1987. Inequality stayed fairly constant between 1987 and 1992; two measures showed slight declines and two measures showed small increases in inequality. Since 1992, however, all measures show a dramatic drop in inequality.