Study: School districts spend more on wealthier schools

A study done by the UW reveals that poor budgeting methods used by most school districts result in millions of dollars being funneled from schools in poorer areas to schools in richer areas within the same district.

The five-year study, conducted by UW researchers Marguerite Roza and Paul Hill, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, focuses on the inadequacies in funding allotments between schools caused by differences in teacher salaries.

More qualified, higher-paid teachers tend to cluster in schools in more affluent neighborhoods. However, school districts don't take this into account when deciding on school budgets; instead, they allocate money as if all teachers made the same salary.

"The only way districts can afford to pay more expensive teachers that congregate in certain schools is by drawing on the dollars saved on the low-cost teachers in the schools with the most junior staff," Roza and Hill wrote in the study.

Roza and Hill surveyed more than 20 school districts, claiming that while they used salary averaging to determine funding, salaries were evenly distributed throughout the district. Those expenditures would change little if the averaged salaries were replaced with actual salaries.

"The analysis of teachers' salaries in the Cincinnati, Seattle, Baltimore City and Baltimore County districts show that the opposite is true," Roza and Hill wrote.

In Baltimore, where the average district salary was $50,830, the actual average salary at one school was $37,618, while the average at another was more than $57,000. Seattle displays a similar pattern; teachers in the wealthier Northeast earned average salaries above $41,000, while those in the poorer southeast area averaged $37,670.

"Education leaders have long recognized the patterns of chronic low performance in high-poverty schools," wrote Roza and Hill. "Yet, leaders in large urban districts continue to ignore the very budgeting practices that systematically funnel resources away from poor- and low-performing schools."

They said by fixing budgeting practices to more accurately reflect the reality of budget disparities between schools, more money could be directed toward poorer schools to help combat low performance.

Also, by limiting resources available to schools for paying salaries, and offering incentives to experienced teachers who choose to teach in poorer areas, a greater number of qualified teachers would spread out among schools throughout school districts.

Roza said more research has been done than was released, but data from such school districts as Denver will soon strengthen the study. Also, a follow-up study is planned to analyze school districts' central-office spending more carefully. Roza hopes these will bring to light problems in school-district spending habits.

"Our ultimate goal is to facilitate change toward more strategic spending among schools and types of students."