A loophole in federal education law leads more than 12,000 high-poverty schools to receive on average $1,200 less per student in funding than lower-poverty schools, finds a new report by the Center for American Progress.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires districts to provide “comparable” education services for students in high- and low-poverty schools, but districts can calculate teacher pay by average, rather than individual salaries.
Using 2010-11 school finance data, researchers found that across 50 states and the District of Columbia, differences in total teacher salaries between schools of different poverty levels created a funding gap of about $8.5 billion.
