Shaping Education Policy by Mitchell Douglas E. Crowson Robert L. Shipps Dorothy

Author:Mitchell, Douglas E.,Crowson, Robert L.,Shipps, Dorothy.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2011-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

3. Politics of Fiscal Equity

Much as the Brown decision attempted to remove discrimination based on students’ race, the next key political struggle in education was to reduce the effects of inequities in property-based school tax resources, which were the major sources of school funds. As King, Swanson, and Sweetland (2003) explained, “Courts are the formal mechanisms created by society for evaluating social policies with parameters established by constitutional and statutory authority…; furthermore, judicial interpretations often stimulate (even compel) legislatures to alter school finance policy” (p. 272).

The school financial equity movement began when the California high court in Serrano v. Priest (1971) found that the state’s public schools were inequitably funded, based on inequalities in local property wealth and tax base and ordered the state to provide more funding to poorer districts and use other methods of reducing the differences in per-pupil expenditures in property rich and property-poor communities. Like Brown, the Serrano decision involved poor families being discriminated against in education, this time based on income rather than race or ethnicity.

As James Guthrie (2004) explained:

In 1964, John Serrano spoke with his son Anthony’s middle school principal. He inquired if there was some way in which the caliber of his son’s schooling could be enhanced. In candor, the principal counseled Mr. Serrano to move, for as long as the family resided in Baldwin Park [a poor section of Los Angeles County], his children would be unlikely to receive the quality education they preferred. (p. 3)

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