Charter School Closure: Implications for Traditional Public School Districts

Ray Budde is credited with creating the charter school concept during the 1970’s. Budde envisioned unique educational laboratories granted charters to develop new and innovative ideas for everything from curriculum to pedagogy to governance. Once these new best practices were finalized, they would be shared with all schools throughout the state. Charter schools are granted more flexibility and autonomy from local board of education regulations and state laws in return for greater accountability to meet their charters’ performance and governance standards.

Charter schools are public schools authorized by either state government (e.g., State Department of Education), traditional public school districts (TPSDs), independent agencies, or colleges and universities depending state’s charter school law. Unlike many states, in New Jersey the state is the sole charter school authorizer. As a result, charter schools function independently from their host district’s board of education under a charter granted by the state (New Jersey Department of Education, 2001). According to the New Jersey Department of Education, as soon as the charter is approved by the Commissioner of Education, the school is governed by a board of trustees authorized by the State Board of Education and the charter school is granted all the necessary powers to execute and implement its charter while held accountable for achieving its charter’s goals.

In New Jersey, a charter school is funded based on its enrollment primarily by the per pupil revenues it receives from its host TPSD’s board of education. According to the New Jersey Department of Education, the host district’s board of education pays the charter school ninety percent of the TPSD’s grade level average per pupil cost-to-educate for each student the charter school enrolls (Bredehoft, 2005). For example, if a charter school enrolled 100 students each in grades one to twelve and the average TPSD per pupil costs-to-educate were $10,000 per elementary student, $12,000 per middle school student, and $14,000 per high school student, the TPSD would pay the charter school $12.78 million for that academic year. Although charter schools cannot charge tuition, they are eligible to receive federal and state funds.

New Jersey charter school law lacks provisions for advance warning or lead time requiring a charter school to warn its host district of its impending closure unlike corporate bankruptcy provisions. Therefore, a charter school with an enrollment of 1,000 students could announce plans in April to close on June 30 forcing the host district to scramble to find the corresponding additional teachers, aides, classrooms, staff, technology, materials, supplies, and program and service levels by September. For example, a charter school may have enrolled 1,000 of 4,000 host district pupils since its opening leaving the host TPSD with 3,000 students. Once the charter school enrolled about 25 percent of its students, the host TPSD may have laid off teachers, aides, and staff, and sold school facilities because its costs did not decrease proportionately with lost enrollment. Thus, the host district would suddenly have but five months to equip itself to accommodate an additional 33% enrollment increase. Proper facility and personnel decisions and actions require more time.

State charter school laws vary concerning the acquisition of and responsibility for debt and ownership and disposition of assets including fund balances. Therefore, the extent to which charter schools can acquire, be held responsible for, or take ownership for debt and the assets acquired with that debt differs from how a typical TPSD uses municipal bonds to finance its capital projects and retains ownership for those assets and the related debt service. Unlike TPSDs, charter schools are not authorized to levy property taxes and can go out of business; therefore, TPSDs typically pay lower interest rates (Nelson, Muir, & Drown, 2000). However, New Jersey charter schools are authorized to maintain positive fund balances enabling charter schools to incur debt at lower interest rates (Nelson, Muir, & Drown, 2000).

New Jersey charter school law allows charter schools to acquire debt; however, the law is silent concerning the entity responsible for charter school debt and debt payment (Nelson, Muir, & Drown, 2000). Although New Jersey’s charter school law stipulates assets purchased with public funds of closed charter schools revert to the host TPSD or state that provided the public funds for acquisition, the definition of ownership is unclear. The lack of clarity results when charter schools lack access to municipal bond markets, authority to guarantee debt repayment, or the ability to “obligate future operating revenue toward the payment of debt for acquiring capital assets,” causing charter schools to find other ways to raise funds for debt payment (Baker & Miron, 2015, p. 29). Among the ways charter schools address this problem is “to establish separate non-profit entities to carry the debt burden” (Baker & Miron, 2015, p. 29). Charter management organizations (CMOs) have access to municipal bond markets, and can take ownership of debt and debt service along with the assets of the charter school managed by the CMO.

Closing a charter school raises major questions concerning charter school asset disposition because New Jersey charter school law is unclear concerning whether the state, host TPSD, or charter school is responsible for charter school debt and debt payment, and asset ownership (Nelson, Muir, & Drown, 2000). If the closed charter school’s debt and asset ownership is held by a separate non-profit entity or CMO, these assets (e.g., school buildings, playing fields, vehicles) do not revert to the host TPSD or state on closure because the debt and assets are not owned by the charter school but by a third party. These assets do not revert to the host TPSD on closure even if formerly owned by the host TPSD.

However, “In the absence of legislation, assets belong to the nonprofit corporation or entity holding the charter, and the laws governing nonprofit corporations guide the issuance of asset disposition” (Nelson, Muir, & Drown, 2000, p. 67). Green and Mead (2004) conclude “Under these laws, the nonprofit’s governing board has the power to dispose of assets once a charter school has closed” (p. 72). Thus, in the event of a charter school’s closure, the charter school’s students would return to the host TPSD as is their right but the assets would not necessarily follow the students. This is a clarion call to work with policymakers to address the state’s charter school law’s need for clarity concerning the acquisition of and responsibility for debt and ownership and disposition of assets in the event of closure.

References

Baker, B. D., & Miron, G. (2015). The business of charter schooling:  Understanding the policies that charter operators use for financial benefit. Boulder, CO:  National Education Policy Center.

Bredehoft, J. M. (2005). New Jersey charter schools:  History and information. New Jersey Community Capital, 1(1), Retrieved from http://www.newjerseycommunitycapital.org.

Green, P. C., & Mead, J. F. (2004). Charter school and the law:  Establishing new legal relationships. Norwood, MA:  Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

Nelson, F. H., Muir, E. & Drown, R. (2000). Venturesome capital:  State charter school finance systems. Washington, D.C.:  U.S. Department of Education.

New Jersey Department of Education, (2001).  Charter school evaluation report. New Jersey Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.state.nj.us.

 

Statewide Voucher (tuition tax credit scholarship) Program: Diverting Funds from failing Traditional Public Schools

A statewide voucher or tuition tax credit scholarship program providing a tuition grant of $10,000 annually to any student attending a failing local public school district, which can be applied to any private religious or independent school, lacks educational equity and does not provide an equal educational opportunity for all students. Asymmetric information would adversely affect voucher users. Not all students have equal knowledge of or access to desirable private religious or independent schools. Private religious or independent schools may not be equitably available within a 20 mile radius. Tax credits disproportionately benefit the affluent and would result in the public subsidizing the voucher program. The voucher program provides an unequal opportunity for students to attend a private or religious school potentially providing a higher quality education. Moreover, state subsidies of religious schools violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

The voucher plan would divert scarce state funds from failing TPSs to private and religious schools. Failing districts are often found in poor urban areas. The failing schools, from which the voucher students would transfer, would lose enrollment based state and federal aid. These failing districts may be poor performing districts because they were traditionally under-resourced districts. These districts may have become failing because they lacked the property tax base with which to generate the revenues necessary to provide an educational quality commensurate with affluent districts. State and federal governments may have contributed to the under-resourcing by providing aid that neither funded all students’ needs nor accounted for the lack of a proper tax base.

A $10,000 tuition grant is inequitable. A $10,000 grant may be less than the per pupil cost for religious schools and independent schools’ tuition. If private religious or independent schools cannot reject potential voucher students even for lack of capacity, who pays the difference between the $10,000 tuition grant and religious schools’ per pupil cost or independent schools’ tuition creates inequities. Affluent parents could more easily afford to pay the delta while requiring all parents to pay the delta would disenfranchise low income and poor parents.

If private religious or independent schools are given no discretion on whether they can afford to accept voucher students, these schools might be forced to close, expand even if expansion was uneconomical, or create a two-tiered tuition scenario within the school with non-voucher students paying higher tuition to offset the voucher deficit. Should private independent schools have discretion, they might admit only voucher students whose parents were willing to pay the delta, fail undesirable voucher students (e.g., disciplinary records), or refuse voucher students that were more expensive to educate such as special education, ELL, and free-and-reduced-price lunch creating more inequities. Moreover, many religious schools are already financially distressed while others are closing due to budgetary pressures (see Baker, 2010).

Copying a practice common to professional sports, the voucher program would create student “free agents” who would have an opportunity to attend a private or religious school potentially providing a higher quality education. If the program did not require voucher students to attend their chosen school for the full academic year, these free agents could use their vouchers to transfer to another school midyear. Private or religious schools losing free agent voucher students during the year would lose voucher revenue. These schools would experience increased costs especially if they had hired additional personnel or built more classrooms and other facilities to accommodate voucher students.

If no deadline exists by which voucher students must enroll such as by April before the upcoming school year, enrollment would be difficult to forecast exposing operating budgets to greater risk. If private religious or independent schools are given no discretion on accepting vouchers students, the more desirable of these schools could suffer overcrowding and congestion. These problems could cause free agent voucher and more mobile non-voucher students to depart during the year exacerbating operating and financial problems. Housing values might plummet commensurate with increased school overcrowding. Also, enrollment increases stemming from vouchers might not be equally distributed among schools or by grade level.

If no provision is made to provide equally accessible and affordable transportation, vouchers would disproportionately benefit the affluent who can more easily afford transportation. Not all students would have equal access to private or public transportation including public light rail. If the failing school district was required to provide or pay for voucher student transportation, failing school costs would increase especially if transportation expenses were not capped.

Failing school neighborhoods or districts depress housing values because poor school quality is negatively capitalized in housing values. Low assessed housing values keep district property values low. Those who can vote with their feet move to districts providing housing and schools that better meet their preferences. White or middle class flight exacerbates the decline of neighborhoods as jobs and capital exit with them. Taxpayers are investors who want their major asset, their home, to appreciate in value. Home owners or catchment area residents have a vested interest in the success of their local TPSs because they strive to offset the risks posed by vouchers to their community-specific social capital and property values which cannot be easily diversified.

The voucher plan subsidizes private religious or independent schools at the expense of traditionally under resourced failing TPSs. The voucher plan is not a means for improving failing schools. On the contrary, the voucher plan creates a triple assault on failing TPSs. First, the voucher plan diverts essential funds away from needy TPSs. Second, the voucher plan causes failing TPSs losing voucher students to lose state and federal enrollment based aid. Third, failing TPSs’ costs increase because costs do not decrease proportionately with lost enrollment. The more mobile and affluent voucher students may be more likely to use vouchers. Losing voucher students increases the proportions of those more expensive to educate remaining in the failing TPSs increasing costs.

If vouchers were used to their logical extreme perhaps with full funding and transportation, large high poverty urban areas could lose students to the extent that the traditional public education system would close leaving a skeletal district. Lacking true TPSs, housing values might plummet further eroding the tax base and increasing the exodus of the remaining relatively more mobile and affluent taxpayers. Neighborhood erosion would accelerate driving out businesses and employment. If taken to the extreme, an unfettered voucher plan could culminate in the demise of urban areas with a preponderance of failing schools.

The provision of education through local public school districts in which students who live in the district attend its TPSs enables community members to get to know and understand one another. Fischel (2002) argues this “reduces the transaction costs of citizen provision of true local public goods” such as public education (p. 1). The public benefit of children attending their local schools rather than schools in more remote areas accrues to the families living in the catchment areas. This “network of adult acquaintances,” that Fischel (2002) defines as “community-specific social capital,” would be reduced to the extent voucher students left their residential district.

The publicness of local public schools is an argument against vouchers in the following sense. By enabling parents to select schools outside their communities and outside of local public supervision, vouchers work against the neighborhood and community networks that facilitate the bottom-up provision of local public goods. Community-specific social capital is more difficult to form if members of the community send their children to schools in other communities. (p. 1)

Vouchers erode community-specific social capital and, thereby, the public support necessary for proper public funding of public education.

References

Baker, B. D. (2010, March 23). Would $8,000 scholarships help sustain NJ private schools? [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2010/3/23/would_$8,000_scholarships_help_sustain_NJ_private_schools?

Fischel, W. A. (2002). An economic case against vouchers:  Why local public schools are a local public good. Dartmouth Economics Department Working Paper:  Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.

 

The Inequities of Inter-district Public School Choice

Like a statewide voucher program, an inter-district public school choice program permitting students attending a failing local education agency (LEA) to attend any neighboring LEA within a 20 mile radius lacks educational and taxpayer equity, and does not provide an equal educational opportunity for all students. Asymmetric information would adversely affect school choice especially among economically challenged families. Not all students have equal knowledge of or access to desirable alternative traditional public schools (TPSs).

Quality alternative TPSs may not be equally available within a 20 mile radius. More affluent families would have higher quality information on alternative TPSs and greater means of enabling their children to attend a choice school such as through family provided transportation. If parents pay tuition to the choice district rather than their failing district, and the tuition is more expensive in the receiving district’s TPS, children of more affluent families would have an unfair and unequal opportunity to attend choice schools compared to poor children.

If full transportation subsidies or free and accessible public transportation are not provided, economically disadvantaged children will lack an equal and equitable opportunity to participate in inter-district public school choice. Not all students would have equal access to private or public transportation including public light rail. If failing school districts were required to provide or pay for transferring students’ transportation, failing schools’ costs would increase especially if transportation expenses were not capped or if the state or federal government did not pay transportation expenses.

Several aspects of the inter-district public school choice program would cause taxpayer inequity. Taxpayer inequity would result when poor parents are unable to send their children to choice TPSs due to their inability to afford the choice TPSs’ tuition or lack of affordable accessible transportation. Taxpayer inequity would result when taxpayers living in the same catchment area have unequal and inequitable access to desirable alternative TPSs. Taxpayer inequity would result should host district residential taxpayers pay higher (or lower) property taxes than out of district school choice parents for the same kind, size, quality, and location of property. Affluent parents can use their disproportionate resource advantage to obtain a superior education for their children while children of parents unable to participate fully or fairly in the choice program would receive an inferior education by continuing to attend failing TPSs even though both families may live in the same catchment area.

State law requiring chosen target TPSs to accept transferring students, even if capacity constrained, results in taxpayer inequity. Forced acceptance of transferring students could result in TPS or district overcrowding. Grade congestion could result should a disproportionate number of students transfer into only a few grades by school or district. Overcrowding could result in higher class sizes, building expansions, or new school facility acquisition or rentals. Overcrowding would diminish the quality of education causing an exodus of students to alternative choice districts.

Incremental teachers, aids, and administrators might be hired to accommodate increased enrollment. Increased personnel and facility costs would most likely require property tax increases. Larger class sizes, TPS or district overcrowding, lower educational quality, and property tax increases would combine to lower local education’s capitalization in district property values. This would cause the relatively more mobile host district taxpayers to vote with their feet. Also, state law requiring chosen target TPSs to accept transferring students may violate court ordered desegregation plans.

Like the statewide voucher program, the inter-district school choice program would divert scarce resources from failing TPSs to choice TPSs. The failing schools would lose enrollment based state and federal aid commensurate with lost enrollment. Failing districts may be failing because they were traditionally under resourced. Failing TPSs may have become failing because their district lacked the property tax base with which to generate the revenues necessary to provide an educational quality commensurate with affluent districts. State and federal governments may have contributed to the under resourcing by providing aid that did not account for the lack of a proper per pupil tax base and did not fully fund the needs of all students.

Poor school quality is capitalized in housing prices making housing values low in failing school neighborhoods. Low assessed housing values keep district property values low. Those who can vote with their feet move to districts providing housing and schools meeting their preferences. White or middle class flight exacerbates the decline of neighborhoods as jobs and capital exit with them. Taxpayers are investors who want their major asset, their home, to appreciate in value. Home owners or catchment area residents have a vested interest in the success of their local TPSs. Whether living under a statewide voucher program or inter-district choice program, homevoters (see Fischel, 2001) strive to offset risks to their community-specific social capital and property values which cannot be easily diversified.

References

Fischel, W. A. (2001). The homevoter hypothesis:  How home values influence local government taxation, school finance, and land-use policies. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.

 

Chartering In New Jersey: Diverting Funds from failing Traditional Public Schools

Increasing charter school availability would increase charter school market share of total district enrollment. Although charter schools would draw students from independent, private, and religious schools, charter school growth would result in many traditional public school (TPS) student transfers. Charter schools would draw students primarily from those TPSs that parents believe are providing an inferior educational quality or that do not meet their preferences.

Charter schools would divert funds from TPSs if charter schools receive 90% of the host district average per pupil costs by grade as charter schools do in New Jersey. TPSs losing students to charter schools lose state and federal enrollment based aid. TPSs’ costs increase because costs do not decrease proportionately with lost enrollment. If charter schools receive host district revenues based on a formula similar to New Jersey’s, charter schools would be given the incentive to locate in districts with high average per pupil spending and to enroll students whose cost to educate is below the district’s average.

Charter school expansion would draw students from religious schools possibly forcing some religious schools to close or merge. The influx of students who previously attended religious schools would increase the proportion of total district enrollment in public schools whether charter or TPS. This would increase the overall cost to the district of having charter schools because a greater proportion of students would be enrolled in public schools whether charter or TPS.

Charter schools could lower their costs while increasing the proportion of the higher cost to educate students remaining in TPSs by cream skimming in potential high test scoring, well behaving (e.g., no disciplinary records), or below district average cost to educate students or cropping out higher than district average cost to educate students such as special education, ELL, or free-and-reduced-price lunch students. Charter schools may not locate randomly but target large urban districts with high per pupil spending. District enrollment losses stemming from charter school transfers might not be equally distributed among schools or by grade level. Thus, charter school expansion would result in an inequitable distribution of school resources. The inequity would be exacerbated because large urban districts have been traditionally under resourced by state school aid formulas and lack a tax base with which to raise the revenues necessary to provide an educational quality commensurate with affluent districts.

If state charter school laws require TPS districts to fully fund district charter schools and pay student transportation to charter schools, large poor urban areas could lose even more students further increasing their costs and decreasing state and federal enrollment based aid. If no provision is made to provide equally accessible and affordable transportation, charter schools might disproportionately enroll more affluent students from families who can more easily afford transportation. Not all students would have equal access to private or public transportation including public light rail. This would result in inequitable access to charter schools.

Asymmetric information might favor more affluent families who would be more aware of charter school availability and quality. TPS catchment areas losing students to charter schools in other neighborhoods even within the same district might experience an exodus of the relatively more mobile and affluent parents with a corresponding decrease in housing values. If carried to its logical extreme, unfettered charter school growth could force TPS or TPS district closures leaving neighborhoods or districts without true TPSs.

Should charter schools exit the district or close once TPSs have closed, districts would be left without the provision of true public education. Lacking public schools, districts would be forced to transport their students to other TPS districts or seek admission to non-district charter schools depending on available capacity. The impact of extreme charter school expansion would result in an inequitable distribution, accessibility, and availability of public education whether charter schools or TPSs. The inequity would most adversely affect those least able to afford or having limited access to education alternatives.

 

Increasing State Equalization Aid 10%: No Guarantee of Equitable Educational Funding

Although increasing state equalization aid 10% would improve the distribution of education funding and local fiscal capacity, state equalization aid does not ensure equitable funding at levels commensurate with affluent districts. This approach tries to ensure equal local property tax burden and more equal total educational funding benefitting districts with low local fiscal capacity. However, state equalization aid does not achieve equity with affluent districts spending at higher levels. State equalization aid improves housing in traditionally low property value per pupil districts by improving the resources the district needs to provide an improved educational quality. The higher quality education provided by the district is capitalized improving property values. Although state equalization aid programs can lead to greater per pupil spending in traditionally under resourced districts, state equalization aid programs can result in lower average per pupil spending or a leveling down (Hoxby, 2001).

Typical state equalization aid programs have caps on the amount of state aid a district can receive which disadvantage economically challenged districts. Caps prevent the provision of a high level of equal educational opportunity stemming from equitable allocation of educational funds. Caps set below the per pupil aid level necessary to equitably fund education commensurate with affluent districts function like foundation aid programs. Metzler (2003) found that various approaches to improving equity in state aid including flat grants, foundation grants, percent equalization aid, guaranteed tax base, guaranteed yield, and full state funding result in no significant difference in the equitable distribution of education resources among districts. Metzler (2003) summarized “that while a state’s school finance approach is unrelated to equity outcome measures, it is significantly related to both the total spending per pupil and the percentage of that spending that comes from the state (rather than local districts)” (p. 588). Metzler (2003) concluded that “Percentage equalizing programs … are mathematically equivalent to a flat grant approach if states impose a ceiling on equalizing aid” (p. 591).

States often distribute aid using various approaches in addition to their state school funding formula which can offset programs intended to increase the equitable distribution of resources. Metzler (2003) describes how New York State manipulates its state school funding formula which uses a percentage equalizing approach to such an extent that the approach becomes “functionally equivalent to a foundation program” (p. 592). New York State’s school funding formula manipulation results in “one of the most inequitable allocations of resources in the country, with a wealth neutrality score of .17 (5^th highest in country) and a coefficient of variation of .20 (2^nd highest in the country)” (Metzler, 2003, p. 593). Thus, New York State reduces its state school funding formula to a minimal adequacy level with a basic guaranteed state funding level that is relatively constant for all districts regardless of aggregate student need.

References

Hoxby, C. M. (2001). All school finance equalizations are not created equal. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 1189-1231.

Metzler, J. (2003). Inequitable equilibrium:  School finance in the United States. Indiana Law Review, (36)3, 561-608.

 

Understanding how Small Class Size Fosters a Sense of Classroom Community: Implications for Class Size Policy

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between class size and the sense of community it affords to provide a clearer understanding of how class size contributes to community. Teachers are integral to this relationship because they have a situated perspective on the classroom practices that contribute to a sense of community and how these practices are influenced by class size. Data were collected from five purposively selected teachers who had taught small and large classes. Findings suggest small classes afforded teachers more time to build classroom community through increased student participation, engagement, interaction, and visibility. Teachers felt the enhanced sense of community enabled them to teach more effectively and students to become better students. The primary benefit of small class size may be the sense of community it affords for students and their teacher. School districts decide how to allocate scarce financial, material, and human resources often without guidance from class size policies based on understanding how small class size contributes to classroom community. Effective class size policy must incorporate the practices necessary for building community and not concentrate on merely reducing student-teacher ratios. It should not be assumed that lowering class size will automatically lead to classroom community, but rather, intentional efforts should be made to facilitate community building in classrooms through policy making efforts.

Introduction

Class size matters. Scholars have argued that small classes generate more benefits for teachers and favorable outcomes for students than large ones (Achilles, Harman, & Egelson, 1995; Finn, 2002; Finn & Achilles, 1990; Glass & Smith, 1978, 1979). Quantitative studies established the correlation between small class size and improved student outcomes including higher standardized test scores, narrowing the achievement gap, and increasing graduation rates (Achilles, Finn, & Pate-Bain, 2002; Angrist & Lavy, 1999; Molnar, 2000). Students tend to behave better, are more engaged, are more visible, and participate more meaningfully in smaller classes (Bateman, 2002; Finn & Achilles, 1990, 1999; Goodenow, 1993; Olson, 1971). As a result, teachers feel more relaxed and enjoy teaching more (Achilles, 1999; Bateman, 2002). Teachers have more time to engage students, get to know students better, and customize instruction to individual student needs because they spend less time managing and organizing small classes (Bourke, 1986; Blatchford & Martin, 1998; Smith & Glass, 1980).

One of the primary benefits of small class size may be the sense of community it affords for students and their teachers. Studies of teachers participating in major class size reduction initiatives suggested small classes enabled teachers to teach more effectively, use their teaching skills to improve student learning, and become better teachers (Achilles, 1999; Graue, Rauscher, & Sherfinski, 2008; Zahorik, Molnar, Ehrle, & Halbach, 2000). Compared to large classes, small classes afford teachers more time to increase student participation, engagement, interaction, and visibility that contribute to improved teaching and learning (Bourke, 1986; Finn & Achilles, 1999; Graue, Rauscher, & Sherfinski, 2009; Levine, 2003; Sarason, 1974). Teachers use the additional time afforded by small classes to better orchestrate their pedagogy (Graue et al., 2009; Wang, 2000). Small classes promote a sense of community based on shared classroom teaching and learning practices enhancing the teaching and learning environment. (Bourke, 1986; Finn, 2002; Graue, Hatch, Rao, & Oen, 2007; Graue & Rauscher, 2009; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2008).

The sense of community stemming from small classes benefits students as well as teachers. Researchers found students experienced a heightened sense of belonging to the classroom causing them to value learning more, become more engaged, and participate more (Bateman, 2002; Biddle & Berliner, 2002; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Levine, 2003; Sarason, 1974). In small classes, students become more connected to the classroom experience and developed more meaningful relationships with teachers and other students (Bateman, 2002; Biddle & Berliner, 2002; Goodenow, 1993; Levine, 2003; Pellegrini & Blatchford, 2000). Building classroom community generates benefits for students and teachers that develop with fewer students in the classroom.

Class size policy tends to fail because it is not based on understanding how small class size contributes to classroom community and how this relationship influences classroom situated teaching and learning (Tyack & Cuban, 1995; Wang, 2000). Teachers have the experience with which to inform policymakers of the mediating factors that foster a sense of community (Kennedy, 2005). If policymakers would consult teachers regularly, base policymaking decisions more on teacher experience, and comport conclusions from a large body of research, policymakers might more readily identify ways to build classroom community facilitating improved teaching practices and student learning (Achilles et al., 1995). Such class size policies would more likely be implemented and used effectively in the classroom rather than burdening teachers with well-intended but irrelevant requirements (Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Class size policy and educational reform will most likely fail unless they focus on building the classroom community necessary for improved teaching practices and student learning (Darling-Hammond, 1998).

Evidence from my study of a relationship between small class size and the sense of community it affords undergirds the rationale for basing class size policy on understanding how small class size contributes to classroom community and how this relationship influences classroom situated teaching and learning. Indeed, findings from my study suggest the benefits of small class size stem from the sense of classroom community. I hypothesize that an enhanced teaching and learning environment results from how small classes foster a greater sense of community than is possible in large classes. My three stage hypothesis is best demonstrated by a conceptual diagram that symbolizes the potential relationship between small class size and the sense of community it affords, and the resultant classroom community influence on classroom situated teaching and learning (see Figure 1).

 

 

Small Class Size Fosters Sense of Community Enhancing Teaching and Learning

Figure 1

 

 

 

In this theoretical depiction, small class size affords teachers more time to build a sense of classroom community through such practices as increased student visibility and participation. The sense of community is characterized by increased feelings of belonging to the class among the teacher and students leading to a shared way of being in the classroom. This sense of community fostered by small class size enables teachers to teach more effectively and students to learn better.

Research concentrating on how small class size fosters the sense of community necessary for improved teaching and learning culminating in increased student achievement is important. Further evidence of such a relationship could augment the significance of having small class sizes and building classroom community. Such information could help inform the design of future class size reduction initiatives and contribute to the development of education policy aimed at improving student achievement and closing the achievement gap.

Research on the relationship between small class size and classroom community could help identify the optimal class size that improves achievement best for specific kinds of students. Evidence of this relationship could inspire policy makers to develop policies resulting in the state and federal funding necessary for class size reductions especially ones targeted for at-risk students such as those who attend large economically disadvantaged urban schools, are eligible for subsidized lunches, are minorities, or are English language learners as well as to address the financial, material, and human resource inequalities among schools. Adoption of these education policies must be accompanied by research to determine the direct costs and benefits and externalities for class size reductions to provide an informed basis for decision making. Understanding the relationship between small class size and classroom community and how it shapes classroom situated teaching and learning is essential because without it class size reductions designed to increase student achievement especially among at-risk students might not be undertaken.

School districts make highly consequential decisions about how to allocate scarce financial, material, and human resources including assigning students and teachers to specific sized classes often with either no or a limited knowledge of how the benefits of small class size stem from the sense of classroom community. Yet, the relationship of class size to classroom community and how it influences classroom situated teaching and learning is not well documented. Thus, questions arise regarding how districts can best decide to assign teachers and students to specific sized classes without research-based policies that comport evidence from investigations of how the relationship between class size and community shapes classroom situated teaching and learning, and ultimately influences student achievement. I theorize that these decisions could be better made with the addition of research-based policies explaining the relationship of class size and classroom community. Effective class size policy must incorporate the practices necessary for building classroom community and not concentrate on merely reducing student-teacher ratios. It should not be assumed that lowering class size will automatically lead to classroom community, but rather, intentional efforts should be made to facilitate community building in schools through policy making efforts.

In theory, the ways in which small class size fosters a sense of community offer the possibility of improving student achievement by building classroom community. Yet, little is documented about how small class size fosters a sense of community, and how this sense of community influences teaching and learning in practice. There is a clear need for additional research that explores the relationship between small class size and classroom community in action—how the relationship is understood and enacted.

The concepts framing this study are drawn from the literature on socio-cultural theory, community of practice, class size, and classroom community. In the following section, each of these literatures is treated to review the research that preceded this study and delineates the direction of the study. These concepts provided the perspective that how teachers teach and students learn in the context of the classroom is shaped by the relationships they develop through their social interaction. Their relationships are influenced by the specific situation in which the social interactions occur. Small classes may foster a sense of community among teacher and students more than large classes (Finn, Pannozzo, & Achilles, 2003). Classroom teaching and learning are influenced by the sense of community that forms within the classroom. The sense of community is shaped by the context of the small class in which the situated teaching and learning occurs.

Literature Review

Four primary bodies of literature have contributed to this review:  socio-cultural theory, community of practice, classroom community, and class size. First, I discuss how socio-cultural theory provides a rationale for small class sizes and a conceptual linkage between small class size and sense of community; second, I discuss how the community of practice concept helps build the argument that students and teachers make meaning of their shared classroom experience more profoundly in small classes than they would in larger classes providing further evidence of a relationship between class size and the sense of community; third, I discuss the benefits of small class size; and fourth, I discuss the benefits of classroom community. This compelling body of literature points to the ways in which the relationship between class size and community shapes classroom situated teaching and learning, and ultimately influences student achievement. These points illustrate the importance of my study as a significant contribution to improving the understanding of the relationship between class size and the sense of community in action.

    Socio-cultural theory.

Socio-cultural theory provides a rationale for the importance of small class sizes and a conceptual linkage between small class size and sense of community. Sociocultural theory derived from Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of a zone of proximal development helps explain how a student learns more and better by interacting with the teacher in the classroom than he or she would learn by him or herself outside of the classroom. How a student learns is a function of his or her interactions with his or her teacher in an educational setting (Vygotsky, 1978). Through their interactions in the classroom, teacher and student develop a relationship that shapes a shared understanding of what the teacher is teaching and what the student is learning. The teacher-student relationship is shaped by the environment in which it occurs.

Community of practice.

The community of practice concept undergirds the argument that students and teachers make meaning of their shared classroom experience more profoundly in small classes than they would in larger classes. This provides further evidence of a relationship between class size and the sense of community. The community of practice concept enhances our understanding of how teachers teach and students learn in the classroom (Lave and Wenger, 1991). This notion of situated learning focuses on how the context of the classroom influences the teaching and learning that takes place because these processes and teacher-student interactions are situation-specific . They occur in a specific educational context, location, and environment in which the teacher and student interact. The context in which the teacher-student interaction occurs influences their relationship, and teaching and learning flow logically from the relationship. Teaching and learning combine to form an educational experience through the process of the social participation of teacher and students in their community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Wenger (2008) expanded on the community of practice concept by explaining how shared practices result from the situated teaching and learning that occur through the social participation of the teacher and his or her students in their community of practice. A community of practice generates property including shared routines and ways of doing things such as interacting and developing relationships that undergird teaching and learning as well as artifacts such as shared documents, curricula, materials, and concepts (Wenger, 2008). Wenger’s expansion of the communities of practice concept helps explain how different students make meaning and learn differently in different sized classes. The social capital generated by small classes may create a unique learning environment that not only affects teachers differently than if the class size was larger but also may influence how teachers perceive schooling and their teaching experience. Through their social participation, teachers and students develop and share social capital that leads to greater knowledge sharing than that which would occur without the formation of a community of practice (Levine, 2003; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).

Benefits of small class size.

Much of the literature focuses on studies of the two major class size reduction initiatives: Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) and Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE). Numerous scholars report that findings of these large scale studies suggest class size is inversely related to student achievement and directly related to the narrowing of the achievement gap (Achilles et al., 1995; Finn & Achilles, 1999; Molnar, Smith, & Zahorik, 2000; Nye, Hedges, & Konstantopoulos, 2000, 2004). Other scholars have argued that findings of these class size reduction studies suggest small classes benefit most students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunches, English language learners, minorities, or attend economically challenged urban schools (Achilles, Nye, Zaharias, & Fulton, 1993; Finn & Rock, 1997; Konstantopoulos, 2009; Konstantopoulos & Chung, 2009; Nye, Achilles, Zaharias, & Fulton, 1993). Economically challenged urban districts with large concentrations of minorities, English language learners, and low socioeconomic status students are often unable to afford significant class size reductions without significant state or federal financial support creating inequitable access to small classes (Brewer, Krop, Gill, & Reichardt, 1999; Hedges, Laine, & Greenwald, 1994; Lazear, 2001; Witte, 2000).

A number of researchers challenge the findings that small class size increases student achievement, narrows the achievement gap, and has several other long lasting benefits despite the research supporting these conclusions (Grissmer, 1999; Hanushek, 1997, 1999, 2002; Hanushek, Kain, Markman, & Rivkin, 2003; Slavin, 1989). Critics argue that the findings of class size reduction initiatives are not generalizable to real world school environments while others claim design flaws raise questions about validity (Grissmer, 1999; Hanushek, 1986; Illig, 1996; Slavin, 1989). Yet, other scholars assessing these studies found teachers of small classes spending more time teaching, having more interactions per child, providing more hands-on activities, and having fewer student behavioral problems (Bourke, 1986; Glass & Smith, 1979; Wang, 2000).

Traditional classroom-based research tends to overlook the contextual influences of class size on teaching and learning, and the connections between class size and the sense of classroom community (Cahen, Filby, McCutcheon, & Kyle, 1983; Finn et al., 2003). Large-scale studies of class size do not examine the mediating variables between class size and academic achievement (see Nye et al., 2000). The shortage of evidence on what classroom practices combine to mediate how class size ultimately affects student achievement underscores the importance of research on how class size shapes the sense of community in the classroom (Blatchford & Martin, 1998; Blatchford, Moriarty, Edmonds, & Martin, 2002; Cahen & Filby, 1979; Finn & Achilles, 1999).

Benefits of classroom community.

The student-teacher interactions that occur in the class context help to shape the classroom community (Blatchford, 2003; Blatchford, et al. 2002). Teachers interact with students in a specific classroom with a specific class size, and the class size affects how teachers approach teaching in that classroom (Blatchford, 2003; Graue et al., 2008; Graue et al, 2009). The inherent qualities of small class size generate classroom specific social capital that teachers and students use to make meaning of the classroom experience (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978). The ecology of small class size is shaped more by the classroom context and the sense of community which cannot be realized in a larger class than it is related strictly to a reduced student-teacher ratio (Blatchford, 2003; Graue & Raucher, 2009; Graue et al., 2009).

Findings of studies based on interviews of teachers who participated in the STAR and SAGE class size reduction initiatives suggest small class size promoted a sense of classroom community (Achilles, 1999; Zahorik et al., 2000). These studies found teachers felt better able to develop a more in-depth knowledge of each student and to provide more personalized, differentiated, and enriched instruction that led to enhanced student critical thinking, articulation of ideas, and learning (Achilles, 1999; Zahorik et al., 2000). The teachers reported higher morale and perceived more positive attitudes about schooling among the students. The findings such as higher standardized test scores, fewer disciplinary problems, more hands-on activities, and more time on-task may just reflect the influence of the qualitative dynamics (Finn & Achilles, 1990; Graue et al, 2008; Olson, 1971). Teachers felt more at ease while teaching in a smaller class (Achilles, 1999). The context of small class size shapes the community in which the teachers and students interact, and how they interact is influenced by the sense of community which would differ significantly from the one created by the same teacher but with a larger class size (Achilles, 1999; Blatchford, Bassett, & Brown, 2005; Zahorik et al., 2000).

Small class size may be the primary contextual factor that influences classroom community (Biddle & Berliner, 2002; Graue et al., 2007; Graue & Rauscher, 2009; Graue et al., 2009; Rimm-Kaufman, La Paro, Downer, & Pianta, 2005). Teachers teach students differently and have a different attitude toward teaching in small classes than they do in large ones (Bennett, 1996; Johnston, 1990). Teachers perceive students to be more academically engaged (Mosteller, 1995; Pate-Bain, Achilles, Boyd-Zaharias, & McKenna, 1992; Pellegrini & Blatchford, 2000). Small classes may have different contextual cues or send different signals that affect teaching differently (Blatchford, et al. 2002; Kounin & Gump, 1974).

Smallness matters because teachers focus more on the quality of their relationships and interactions with their students in small classes (Betts & Shkolnik, 1999; Blatchford et al., 2005; Stuhlman & Pianta, 2009). The context of small classes influences the student-teacher interactions that occur in the classroom and the situated teaching and learning that logically flow from these contextually influenced interactions. The key to understanding the ecology of small class size lies not in the classroom student-teacher ratio but in the quality of the instructional student-teacher interactions and the relationships that result from the situated teaching and learning.

Small classes facilitate a feeling of community that enables students to develop a sense of belonging to and being invested in a learning environment (Bateman, 2002; Goodenow, 1993). Compared to large classes, small classes have fewer disruptions and disciplinary problems affording teachers more time to develop a keen sense of belonging to a learning community that is reflected in students’ increased participation, engagement, interaction, visibility, and activity within the classroom (Cahen et al., 1983). Small classes increase students’ visibility incenting them to become better students according to the firing line hypothesis (Finn, 2002). Teachers and students get to know each other better in small classes increasing their sense of belonging to their classroom community. The heightened sense of community fostered by small class size may enable teachers to improve their teaching and students to become better students.

This body of research points to the potential for the benefits of small class size to result directly from the sense of classroom community and this classroom community develops with fewer students in the classroom. Findings suggest small classes afforded teachers more time to build classroom community through increased student participation, engagement, interaction, and visibility. Teachers felt the enhanced sense of community enabled them to teach more effectively and students to become better students. These mediating factors help explain the contextual differences between small and large classes (Bateman, 2002; Blatchford & Martin, 1998; Blatchford et al., 2002). This body of research suggests small class size makes the mediating factors more likely to develop than large class size (Bateman, 2002; Blatchford et al., 2002; Finn & Achilles, 1999). Research indicates that sense of community can influence both teaching practice and student learning (Achilles, 1999; Blatchford, 2003; Finn & Achilles, 1990; Graue et al., 2008, 2009; Levine, 2003; Zahorik et al., 2000). My study of how five teachers experienced the relationship between class size and classroom community contributes to how this relationship is understood and enacted in practice.

Methodology

Using case study methodology, I explored how five teachers experienced the relationship between class size and classroom community (Creswell, 2013). The school district was selected purposefully from among a population of New Jersey traditional public school districts depending on the superintendent’s willingness to have his or her district serve as the sample site (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The availability of teachers who had several years of experience teaching different subjects in small and large classes, taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, and were interested in participating voluntarily also was essential. I selected purposefully teachers who had taught small classes defined as approximately 13 to 17 students and large classes defined as more than 22 students because STAR used 13 to 17 students as its small class size and 22 to 25 students as its large class size. I selected teachers using snowball sampling because I believed that by beginning with a few teachers whom the superintendent recommended, these teachers might be willing to connect me with other teachers who would be not only interested in serving as participants but also information-rich (Creswell, 2013). Each of the five teachers had experience teaching at least two different subjects in small and large classes at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. The subjects included English, language arts, mathematics, science, history, special education, personal finance, Spanish, and technology as well as Advanced Placement and Honors courses. Teachers’ experience ranged from 16 to 33 years. Selecting all five teachers from the same district provided consistent district policies governing how teachers and students were assigned to specific sized classes.

I conducted semi-structured interviews, lasting approximately one hour, using my interview protocol (Appendix A) during January, 2013, and after the school day at the teachers’ convenience. The interviews focused on how the teachers experienced teaching in small and large classes, and how the class size context influenced their classroom experiences. Also, I tried to determine if teachers believe that they teach students differently and have a different attitude toward teaching in smaller classes than they do in larger ones.

The procedures for data analysis included deductive reasoning from my literature review and the concepts framing it, as well as inductive reasoning based on the teachers’ interview responses. All of the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Transcribing my field notes and interview recordings provided insights into how to organize and manage the data; identify trends, themes, and patterns; and how to interpret findings in view of the concepts framing my research. Using these insights, I compared segments of the data. This process helped determine validity by identifying negative evidence, differences, disagreements, and commonalities as well as triangulating statements and weighing alternative explanations (Bernard & Ryan, 2010).

Interview transcripts and field notes were organized, coded, and analyzed using codes (Appendix B) deductively derived from my literature review and the concepts shaping it. The codes were also inductively derived from the teachers’ interview responses in the five transcripts. This facilitated my assessment of the relationships among code categories and clusters enabling me to test hypotheses, build explanations for potential outcomes, and identify patterns across teacher responses and class sizes.

    Validity and Limitations.

I used a number of procedures to assess validity including triangulation to identify common themes and sets of teacher experiences within the interview data (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Similarly, I examined the data through the process of disconfirming evidence (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Selecting teachers from the same district helped ensure consistent board of education policies governing class sizes by grade level and the procedures for assigning teachers and students to specific sized classes. Selecting teachers through snowball sampling meant using existing classes of teachers and students of a certain grade and in certain classrooms within certain schools. Pre-existing conditions, such as teacher length of service and tenure, student academic achievement and abilities, and the teachers’ and students’ amount of experience in both small and large class sizes, might have affected my study.

Selection bias could have been a factor. A question of validity arises because the teachers’ attitudes toward class size might have been influenced by their selection for my study. Teachers who participated may have had a favorable predisposition to small class size that might have influenced their responses making them perhaps more favorable to small class size. Questions of validity could arise because I did not account for possible differences in teacher education, training, and experience. Also, questions of validity could arise because I did not try to determine whether the teaching methods employed by the teachers were best suited for small or large class sizes.

Findings

I explored the relationship between class size and the sense of community it affords to provide a clearer understanding of how class size contributes to classroom community. I conducted this study because little was documented about the ways in which small class size fostered a sense of community, influenced classroom situated teaching and learning, and offered the possibility of improving student achievement in practice—how the relationship was understood and enacted in the classroom. I interviewed five purposefully selected teachers to determine how they experienced the relationship between class size and classroom community, and the influence of the sense of community on classroom situated teaching and learning. Using the teachers as my lens, I conducted this study with their words shaping my understanding of the relationship between class size and classroom community.

My findings suggest a relationship between class size and the sense of community it affords in the classroom that small class size fosters more than large class size. The teachers’ comments suggest small classes afforded them more time to build classroom community through increased student participation, engagement, interaction, and visibility. The teachers felt the enhanced sense of community afforded by small classes enabled them to teach more effectively and students to become better students while teachers and students alike seemed to feel more at ease. Indeed, the teachers seemed to share the notion that the primary benefit of small class size is the sense of community it affords for students and their teacher.

    Sense of community.

The five teachers felt students developed a greater sense of community in small classes because they were better able to get to know each student and students were better able to know each other than they could in large classes. The five teachers shared the notion that small classes afforded them more time to teach and focus on how students were learning and less time managing student behavioral and disciplinary issues. Anne (teacher 1), Beth (teacher 2), Elaine (teacher 4), and Jane (teacher 5) emphasized how the context of small classes created an environment in which students relate to each other and the teacher better, creates an enhanced sense of belonging to the class and with each other, and an environment more conducive to improving student achievement. Carol (teacher 3) focused more on how small classes developed a class personality which seemed to reflect a sense of community. The sense of community was neither as strong nor as conducive to learning in large classes the five teachers reported. Anne, Beth, Elaine, and Jane stressed how students just did not develop a sense of belongingness or community in large classes. Carol highlighted the importance of how students were not aligned or in synchronization but more of a loosed confederation than a close body of colleagues in large classes. The teachers shared the notion that students in small classes were more likely to form a much keener sense of community than students in large classes.

Anne emphasized how the qualities inherent to smallness created more of a sense of community “There just is something special about having a small class of 15 or fewer students. There are contextual advantages to smaller classes that are missing in large classes.” Beth emphasized the sense of belongingness that small classes fostered “Students feel as if they belong to the class and with each other more in small classes. It’s almost as if they feel like they’re members of a special club which I have never experienced in larger classes! Students want to be there more in small classes because they relate to each other and better.” Carol made a more focused point concerning belongingness “It depends on the personality of the class. If the personality is not aligned as it isn’t in a large class then the students are not aligned with each other. Personality is chemistry; the chemistry among the students and it differs by class size. Large classes just lack the right chemistry for learning and for teaching.” Jane echoed Carol’s emphasis on personality “Small classes are more personable. Students are more successful in small classes. Feel as if they belong? Not all students do in a large class. But students feel like they belong in a small class. Feeling they belong matters to the students. It makes them better students than in large classes.”  Large classes were extremely frustrating for Elaine “All students benefit from a smaller group environment. I benefit from a smaller class environment. You never get through your lesson for the day in a large class! You’re always controlling kids. It’s just like fighting fires in larger classes; you never get time to teach or at least I feel that way. I love teaching but I can’t do my job as well when classes are large.”

The teachers’ responses indicated certain factors contributed significantly to the relationship between class size and the sense of community it affords in the classroom that small class size fosters more than large class size while others had little if any effect. The major factors include classroom management, visibility, engagement, participation, interactions, and learning environment. The minor factors include pedagogy, morale, and demographic differences.

    Classroom management.

All five teachers stressed that they spent less time managing and organizing small classes because of fewer student disruptions and discipline problems. Consequently, all five teachers reported spending more time teaching and focusing on how students were learning. Anne and Carol focused on how small classes were easier to manage while Beth, Elaine, and Jane found students behaved better in small classes which they felt stemmed from their being more effective teachers in small classes. Reflecting her frustration with large classes, Anne exclaimed “I feel as if all I do is manage behavior or control the class in large classes and not teach! It’s easier to manage and teach with fewer students.” Beth was similarly disappointed with large classes but not as frustrated “I have fewer disciplinary problems in small classes which give me more time to teach so students learn more.” Large classes left Carol feeling exasperated “If I’m in front of the class, then the kids in the back are out of control. But when I’m in the back, the kids in front are out of control. Kids who are harder to control are always further away from me with 29 kids in the class. Nothing gets done or done right in large classes!” Elaine echoed Carol’s feelings “There’s just more bad behavior in large classes and less learning. The kids try to out-do each other in misbehaving in large classes such as those with more than 20 kids. I just feel as if I do not teach as well as I should in large classes because I am always disciplining kids, and some more than others. They’re not all bad in large classes; I have good students who are well behaved just not as many as in smaller classes.” Jane shared a similar frustration with large classes while emphasizing the positive aspects of small classes “Large classes give students more opportunities to act-up or misbehave which takes time away from instruction. I prefer smaller classes because fewer students mean fewer behavioral problems and more time to teach. After all, I should be there to teach not discipline; right!” The teachers delineated how small classes enabled them to experience an environment more conducive to learning and teaching than in large classes. The teachers’ comments were consistent with the findings of large scale class size reduction studies concerning enhanced classroom management resulting from fewer student disruptions and disciplinary problems in small classes.

    Visibility.

In discussing visibility, the teachers overwhelmingly agreed that much less social loafing and diffusion of student responsibility occurred in small classes (Finn, 2002). All five teachers described “gliders” as students who engaged in social loafing and did not take responsibility for their actions in class. “Gliders” were students who glided through large classes without engaging in class activities or discussions. “Gliders” often did not connect with other students during class while seeming to remain below the class radar. The five teachers inferred that “gliders” did not feel as if they were visibly on the firing line and, consequently, preferred to fade into the background during class.

Anne bemoaned how large classes made students less visible “Some students just get overlooked in large classes. The more students, the more students get overlooked. Students know they can hide in large classes where there are 20 students with them so they glide through class. This doesn’t happen in smaller classes of about 14 or 15 or so.” Beth echoed Anne’s frustration “It’s harder to pay attention to everyone in large classes. I just don’t have time to make sure everyone is paying attention so many students just glide in large classes.” Carol exclaimed the “glider” problem with deep feeling and conviction “There are just too many gliders in large classes! Gliders are students that just glide along without getting engaged! They do not ask questions. Gliders make no connections because it’s easier to glide in large classes. In large classes, gliders get drummed out of the system; they just come in and do what they need to do and go to the next class. But when I see the gliders in another class that’s smaller it’s a shock because they are really talkative, ask questions, and engaged!” Although Elaine was less extreme in her comments, she was similarly frustrated “Students get off-task more in larger classes. Once off-task, large classes enable them to just glide by because they know you just don’t have time to pay attention to everyone.” Jane echoed Elaine’s concern but focused more on the positive context of small classes “Everyone steps up to the plate in a small class whereas not all do in a large class. Students are more likely to pay attention, participate, and be engaged in small classes. Students don’t glide when classes are small because they’re involved.” The teachers’ comments reflected how they experienced increased student visibility in small classes.

    Engagement.

All five teachers emphasized that students were more engaged in small classes. All five teachers attributed heightened engagement to the increased visibility and greater sense of being on the firing line in small classes. Carol expanded on the increased visibility and belongingness by describing that there was a greater opportunity for students to goof-off because they perceived themselves as more anonymous in large classes.

Anne stressed the importance of visibility for increased engagement “Students are engaged more in small classes because they cannot hide from the teacher. When students are more engaged, they learn more.” Beth echoed Anne’s feelings “I provide more individual attention in small classes. Students become more engaged because I pay more attention to them in smaller classes.” Carol spoke with deep feeling about the problems of teaching in large classes “There’s more goofing off in large classes because students feel more anonymous. Students glide; not engage! Students sense they can goof-off and glide because there are just too many students for the teacher to control.” Elaine and Jane emphasized how increased student engagement stems for having more time in small classes.  Elaine emphasized how “There are more opportunities for interactions in small classes. Students seem to expect more attention in small classes, and they get it! This leads to greater engagement.” Jane explained how “A teacher can be more interactive in smaller classes. The more time teachers have to interact with students, the more and better students engage in class activities.” The teachers shared the notion that students were more engaged in small classes because they were more visible and more often found themselves on the firing line.

    Participation.

All five teachers spoke with conviction that students participate more in small classes than in large classes. All of the teachers experienced students participating more because they were much better behaved and disrupted class much less in small classes. Anne especially enjoyed feeling more like an educator and less like a disciplinarian in small classes. Similarly, the teachers experienced having much less time to encourage students to participate or provide feedback in large classes. The teachers stressed how they took advantage of having fewer class disruptions to encourage more students to participate more often and meaningfully in small classes.

Anne spoke with deep feeling and conviction about how small classes enabled her to feel more like a teacher and less like a disciplinarian because of increased student participation “Students participate more in small classes because there are fewer student disruptions. Students simply behave better and are better students in small classes. Because students participate more and more meaningfully in small classes and behave better, I feel like a teacher should feel; not like a disciplinarian!” Beth experienced deep frustration with the lack of time for meaningful participation in large classes “There just isn’t time for everyone to participate in every class in a large class! Large classes rob students of a real chance to learn. Why do they assign us to classes with more than 20 kids?” Carol echoed Beth’s comments while emphasizing the value of the small class context “There’s more participation in small classes because I have more time to involve everyone. There’s a lower amount of feedback in large classes. I simply don’t have time to connect with all students in a large class as I can in a smaller class.”  Like Carol, Elaine and Jane strongly agreed that small classes afford them more time to involve and pay attention to all students causing students to participate more in classroom activities, discussions, and work. Elaine felt deeply that “Students have the ability to get more immediate feedback and extra exposure; so they participate more in small classes. But I also have more time to involve students which leads to greater participation.” Having more time to involve students and have them participate more mattered to Jane “There are more opportunities and time for students to participate in small classes. I have more time to involve everyone. No one can avoid participating in small classes. Students participate more meaningfully when they have more time.” All five teachers shared the notion that students participated more because they were more visible and teachers had more time in small classes.

    Interactions.

The five teachers overwhelmingly agreed that they experienced more meaningful student interactions in small classes. Anne, Beth, Carol, and Elaine spoke with deep feeling that they not only had more frequent and higher quality interactions but also provided more immediate feedback in small classes. Jane stressed small classes were more interactive because she had more time to make them so.

Anne spoke with deep conviction about the value of interactions “I can have more frequent and higher quality interactions in small classes. The more I interact with students, the more they learn. Having more time in small classes means higher quality interactions. This is an advantage over large classes.” Like Anne, Beth found students learn better through more frequent and higher quality interactions “I can answer more questions in small classes and provide more immediate feedback. The more I interact with students, the more value I believe I add and the more they learn.” Carol echoed Anne’s and Beth’s comments “My small classes are more interactive. I feel my students learn more and learn quickly in small classes.” Elaine and Jane found the increased amount of time afforded by small classes contributed to more frequent interactions. Elaine delineated how “There are more opportunities for interactions of higher quality in small classes. This is what a quality education should be about!” Jane believed that she and her students benefitted from small classes “A teacher can be more interactive in smaller classes because she has more time to do so. Based on my experience, I know students learn better the more I interact with them!” The teachers’ comments were consistent with the findings of large scale class size reduction studies concerning increased quality of more frequent interactions.

    Learning environment.

The five teachers felt deeply that small classes created an improved learning environment because they had more time to teach enabling them to more effectively use the daily lesson plan and curriculum. Anne, Beth, and Carol stressed students collaborated, shared knowledge, and learned more in small classes. Elaine and Jane emphasized small classes enabled teachers to individualize instruction, get to know their students better, provide more immediate feedback, and develop a more accurate assessment of student performance.

Anne felt deeply that “There is more learning in a small class. Students simply learn more and better with fewer students in the classroom. We should have only 15 or 16 students per regular class.” Anne extended the rationale by questioning the value of large classes “How can students be expected to learn anything well when there are so many students in the classroom that the teacher simply doesn’t have time to teach properly!” Beth shared Anne’s feelings while emphasizing the advantages of small classes “Students are more collaborative in small classes and there is less or no time for collaboration in large classes! It’s learn if you can or are willing to do so in large classes; you don’t have this option in small classes!” Carol felt deeply that students benefited from small classes “Students get a lot more out of the class because of smaller size. Small size makes a difference. Students learn more and become better students when classes are small!” Elaine also focused on the advantages of the small class context “Small classes are more personable and have the opportunity for more personal connections; students are more on task in a small class. The teacher can give more specific feedback and students are better able to properly grasp concepts. Small size means better learning!” Jane exclaimed how small classes enable students to experience epiphanies “In small classes, all students are connected with the teacher and lesson. Students have the ‘light bulb’ go on regularly! I sense students experience the ‘light bulb’ going on frequently in small classes. The class has value; it’s meaningful to the student especially beyond that class on that day. It’s genuinely a worthwhile experience, and the student sees how the class matters.” All five teachers shared the notion that large classes did not make possible enhanced student collaboration, knowledge sharing, and learning and compelled teachers to standardize instruction. The five teachers strongly agreed that they taught more effectively and students became better students in small classes.

    Pedagogy.

Although none of the five teachers said specifically that small class size made significant differences in their teaching styles or lesson content, the teachers conveyed how they individualized instruction more based on the specific needs of individuals, small groups, or students grouped by ability level. Anne shifted her pedagogy from whole-class instruction to more one-on-one or teacher-small group instruction. Although Beth reported she taught the same way regardless of class size, she found that students paid closer attention to her lesson plan, learned more, and had more meaningful experiences in the small classes. Like Beth, Carol, Elaine, and Jane said they did not change their pedagogy but stressed how small classes provided them with much more flexibility to adapt their lesson plan daily to unique or unforeseen circumstances.

Anne insisted she did not change her pedagogy based on class size while explaining how she varied her teaching methods “I used less whole-class instruction and much more individualized or small group instruction in my small classes.” Like Anne, Beth insisted she taught the same way regardless of class size despite experiencing differences in how students responded to her teaching in small classes “I teach the same way in small or large classes but in small classes you see the ‘light bulb’ go off and students taking pride in their work. Students seem to learn better and get more meaning out of my smaller classes. I feel students follow my lesson plan more closely.” Carol felt deeply that students benefited from the flexibility afforded her in small classes even though she believed she taught the same way regardless of class size “Group work is harder to do in a large class and it’s easier to observe students in small classes. I have smaller groups in small classes and students seem to get more out of them.” Elaine experienced teaching differently in small classes even though she expressed no change in pedagogy according to class size “It’s easier to move on without answering all questions in a large class. In a large class you just have to move on and can’t answer all questions or you’ll never get through your lesson for the day. You just can’t approach large classes the same way.” Jane summarized how the teaching experience differs according to class size “The difference between small and large classes is the difference between turning a schooner and turning a freighter. It takes much more effort and time to turn the freighter. You can change direction more easily in a smaller class.” The teachers’ combined comments gave credence to how small class size enables teachers to affect their pedagogical orchestration to benefit students.

    Morale.

All five teachers experienced having higher morale and less stress in small classes. All of the teachers reported having more time for instruction in small classes causing them to be more relaxed about achieving their goals and have greater enthusiasm for teaching. Carol stated with deep feeling and conviction that simply being assigned large class sizes of 25 rather than 15 caused her great anxiety which she believed adversely impacted her teaching. All of the teachers agreed that they perceived a more positive attitude about schooling among the students in small classes. Anne was enthusiastic about small classes “I enjoy small classes more and students’ attitudes are better. Students enjoy small classes, learn better, and are easier to teach making my job what it should be!” Beth had negative experiences with large classes “In a large class you’re just hoping to make it through each row every day. Most days I just hope to make it through two rows and that’s not calling on every student! Large classes take the fun out of teaching.” Carol was overwhelmed with anxiety that adversely affected her teaching experience in large classes “When I look at my roster and see I have been assigned huge numbers of kids, I get stressed out! This carries over into class because of the stress of being assigned 25 kids per class rather than 15. Large classes ruin the learning environment!” Elaine and Jane emphasized the positive learning and teaching context of small classes while sharing their frustration with large classes.     Elaine exclaimed “I enjoy and love small classes! The students seem better adjusted and I can teach more effectively than in large classes.” Jane echoed Elaine’s comments “I have more time for teaching in smaller classes and enjoy teaching more. The students enjoy small classes more and don’t seem to learn as much in large ones. I teach more effectively in small classes.” The teachers’ comments were consistent with the findings of large scale class size reduction studies concerning teachers experiencing improved morale and a more positive attitude toward teaching in small classes.

    Demographic differences.

None of the five teachers felt that class size had any significant effects according to a student’s race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, or level of English proficiency because they believed that their responsibility was to mediate such differences. Yet, Anne and Beth stressed that mainstreamed special education students benefitted more from smaller classes. Elaine expressed that even though students whose native language was Spanish seemed to perform better in smaller classes they often did not seem to perform as well as others who were more fluent in English. All five teachers felt strongly that their primary responsibility was to make sure no performance differences manifested according to a student’s race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, or level of English proficiency.

Anne and Beth experienced no demographic class size differences except for mainstreamed special education students. Anne explained “I find no differences among different groups of students even though mainstreamed students seemed to do better in small classes.” Beth echoed Anne’s comments “I experienced no class size differences by demographics but special education kids did better.” Carol extended the no demographic class size differences theme “There are no class size differences among my students by race, ethnicity, free lunch status, gender, or ELL. Whether or not a student does well isn’t a function of class size in my experience.” Elaine believed that finding no demographic class size differences reflected the way she perceived her role “My job is to make sure there are no differences.” Jane echoed the other teachers’ comments “I have more time for teaching in small classes so there are no differences.” The teachers’ comments were inconsistent with the findings of large scale class size reduction studies that found small class size benefitted most at-risk students who were eligible for free or subsidized lunches, minorities, English language learners, or attending large economically disadvantaged urban schools.

Discussion

My study found evidence of a relationship between class size and the sense of community in the classroom that small class size fostered more than large class size. The five teachers believed small classes fostered a classroom community centering on interrelated practices of teaching and learning situated in the classroom. They shared the notion that small classes promoted a greater sense of community in the classroom than is possible in large classes. The enhanced sense of community influenced how teachers taught, perceived students to learn, framed their perceptions of schooling, and created more favorable attitudes toward teaching. The teachers believed the enhanced sense of community fostered by small class size shaped how students felt as if they belonged to the classroom and became better students.

Compared to large classes, small classes afforded teachers more time to engage in the practices that contributed to a sense of classroom community including increasing student participation, engagement, interaction, and visibility. Teachers and students got to know each other better in small classes. Students became more connected to the classroom community and developed more meaningful relationships with teachers and other students because teachers had more time for instruction, individualization, and in-depth interactions. Despite reporting no significant differences in their teaching styles or what they perceived as pedagogy, the teachers did orchestrate their pedagogy by significantly reducing whole-class instruction and increasing individual and small group instruction.

The teachers reported using the additional time afforded by small classes to provide an improved learning environment including more and higher quality instruction, learning activities, enriched content, and classroom management. Teachers experienced higher morale, less stress, and more enthusiasm for teaching as a result of the heightened sense of community in small classes. Although teachers did not perceive any significant class size-based differences according to a student’s race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, or level of English proficiency, they were frustrated by the lack of time to properly differentiate instruction in large classes.

    Mediating Influences.

Evaluating small class size mediating factors is difficult because the extent to which the teachers reported their experiences accurately or that their recollections, if honest, actually reflected the classroom experience is unknown. Observational data would help to interpret teachers’ interview responses and explain the relationship between class size and the sense of community it affords in practice. Teacher perceptions are weak proxies for measures of enhanced teacher effectiveness, student learning, and sense of community. Selecting teachers from the same school district ensures that they are subject to the same district culture and operating procedures governing how teachers teach and students are assigned to a class of a certain size. However, this may limit the generalization of my findings to this school district.

Selecting teachers through snowball sampling means that existing classes of teachers and students of a certain grade and in certain classrooms within a certain school are used. This may overlook the potential impact of pre-existing conditions such as teacher length of service and tenure, student academic achievement and abilities, and the teachers’ and students’ amount of experience in both small and large class sizes. Selection bias could be a factor because teacher attitudes toward the relationship of small class size and sense of community might have been influenced by their selection for my study. Teachers who participated may have had a favorable predisposition to small classes that might influence their responses making them perhaps more favorable to small classes. The validity of my findings could be challenged because I neither account for possible differences in teacher education, training, and experience nor try to determine whether the teaching methods that the teachers employ are best suited for small or large classes.

Implications.

Although the quantitative benefits of small class size are well documented, these favorable outcomes may stem from the sense of community fostered by small classes. The educational context provided by small class size undergirding the favorable quantitative findings may be more difficult to measure but might be more influential to quality teaching and learning. Smaller class size enables more frequent and meaningful student-teacher interactions improving situated teaching and learning. How teachers teach is influenced by small class size contextual factors. Students achieve more because of the sense of community rather than that which the simple reduced student-teacher ratio might suggest.

Having fewer students in the classroom enables the teacher to personalize instruction. Consequently, students pay more attention to their teacher and class work while constructively participating more in the classroom. A small class enables students to be more involved or in touch with their classroom experience so they learn more and behave better thereby enabling the teacher to teach differently than he or she would in a large class. Teachers experience teaching differently in a small class as compared to a larger one as a result. Small class size may be more conducive to forming a classroom community that enables teachers and students to make meaning of their shared classroom experiences in more profound ways than they would in larger classes.

My study demonstrates the need for more research on the relationship between class size and the sense of community. More research is necessary because the majority of class size research neither delves into how the ecology of small classes fosters a sense of community nor examines how an enhanced teaching and learning environment stems from the enhanced sense of community. Specifically, more research is needed to determine how the relationship between small class size and the sense of community it affords influences how teachers teach and students learn, differential effects on different student groups, the most effective class size for different kinds of students, and how teachers should be trained to take full advantage of the educational opportunities resulting from the sense of community fostered by small classes. The contextual factors of small class size seem to outweigh the student-teacher ratio in terms of its effect on the classroom environment, foster a sense of community more than is possible in larger classes creating a classroom Habitus, and enable teachers and students to form classroom community capital to mediate their differential educational experiences.

Evidence of how small class size contributes to classroom community and how this relationship influences classroom situated teaching and learning could undergird the development of new class size reduction policies based on this understanding. These class size policies would be more likely not only to be implemented and used effectively in the classroom but also to have the benefits of the relationship between small class size and sense of community manifest in the classroom. Such class size policies could inform the design of class size reduction initiatives that culminate in improving student achievement and narrowing the achievement gap.

Evidence of the relationship between small class size and classroom community could identify the optimal class size that improves achievement best for specific kinds of students. Understanding the educational benefits stemming from this relationship could motivate policy makers to provide the state and federal funding necessary for statewide class size reductions especially ones targeted for at-risk students such as those who are attending large economically disadvantaged urban schools, eligible for subsidized lunches, minorities, or English language learners as well as to offset the financial, material, and human resource inequalities among schools. Policies grounded in understanding the relationship between small class size and classroom community and how it shapes classroom situated teaching and learning would increase the likelihood that class size reductions designed to increase student achievement especially among at-risk students would be undertaken, funded, and properly implemented.

Research-based class size policy could result in a more equitable distribution of the financial, material, and human resources necessary for disadvantaged districts to achieve the same benefits stemming from the relationship between small class size and classroom community as those experienced by affluent districts. Such policies would inform school districts about how to allocate scarce financial, material, and human resources equitably including assigning students and teachers to specific sized classes. Findings from my study suggest class size policy should be based on understanding how the benefits of small class size stem from the sense of classroom community resulting from having fewer students in the classroom.

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Appendix A

Interview Guide

• What is the smallest and largest class size in which you have taught?
• How did you experience teaching in the smallest class?
  • And in the largest class?
• Were there any particular qualities of the small class that you experienced that were different from the larger class?
  • How would you describe these qualities?
  • How would you describe the differences in the qualities?
• What are some of your feelings about teaching in a small class as compared to a large class?
  • How would you explain these feelings?
  • Have your feelings evolved over the time in which you have taught?
  • If so, how have they evolved?
• Suppose I was a student in your class, how do you think I would experience the class?
  • Why?
  • What would it be like?
  • How might my experiences differ if I was a student in your small sized class as compared to the larger sized class?
  • Why?

• How do you think that diverse students experienced your smaller sized class and your larger sized class?  Why do you think this (repeat interviewee’s response here) might have been the case?
  • Boys?
  • Girls?
  • Students of different cultures?
  • Students of different ethnic groups?
  • Students belonging to different minority groups?
  • Students of different ages?
  • Students eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches (i.e., impoverished backgrounds)?

• Do you feel that smaller class size enables you to do some things differently than if you were teaching in a large class?
  • What are some of these different things?
  • (If interviewee seems hesitant or unsure, suggest some of the following as thought starters):
    • More small group activities
    • More interactions with individual students
    • Get to know students better
    • More in-depth interactions
    • More individualized or differentiated instruction
    • More time teaching
  • How would you describe your experiences of these different things?
• What do you think might be the effects of smaller class size on:
  • The way you teach?
  • Student-teacher interactions?
  • Classroom behavior?
  • The ways in which students learn?

• Do you find yourself using different teaching methods in small as compared to large class sizes?  If so, what might be some of these methods?
  • For small classes?
  • For large classes?
• You have shared a lot of information about teaching in a small sized class.
  • What would you say are some of the qualities that appealed to you most about small class size?
  • And, least?
• Do you think that there are inherent advantages of smallness?
  • That is, do smaller class sizes have certain contextual advantages over larger class sizes?
  • If so, what are some of these advantages?

• How would you describe what you think would be the ideal classroom experience?
  • From the teacher’s perspective?
  • From the student’s perspective?
• Last Question:  Do you have anything you want to add that we have not talked about?

Appendix B

Code Tree

• Small Class Effect
  • Positive
  • Negative
• Large Class Effect
  • Positive
  • Negative
• Sense of Community
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
  • None
• Classroom Management
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
• Visibility
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
  • None
• Engagement
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
  • None
• Participation
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
  • None
• Interactions
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
• Learning Environment
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
• Learning Activities
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
• Pedagogy Orchestration
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
  • No Effect
• Methods of Instruction
  • Whole Class
  • Small Groups
  • Individual
  • No Change
• Morale
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
• Demographic Effects
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low
  • None

 

Adequacy is Inadequate

State aid formulas based on achieving adequacy may generate funding which states deem necessary to provide an adequate education. Such approaches are inequitable because students’ needs and the cost to educate each student based on his or her needs vary by school, district, and state. Adequacy approaches often fund districts based on average per pupil costs. This results in under resourced districts especially those with disproportionately high per pupil costs such as large urban districts.

Foundation aid formulas provide approximately the same aid per district regardless of the district’s ability to raise property tax revenue which exacerbates the inequitable resource gap among affluent and under resourced districts. Adequacy formulas even those with varying levels of aid based on district needs, aim to generate an adequate level of resources to meet an adequate level of state educational performance standards.

Funding to achieve adequacy rather than equity, results in adequate but inequitable educational resource allocation among schools and districts. Equity requires funding based on the cost to educate each student in his or her district. Equitable funding must be provided to enable every district to have the combined local, state, and federal funding necessary to provide a quality education commensurate with the most affluent districts. Equity will not be achieved by providing only a minimally adequate level that maintains the inequitable resource gap.

 

End Educational Redlining to Achieve Educational Equity and Equal Opportunity

Redlining is the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status place-based financial and institutional exclusionary practices used to exploit targeted groups. Traditional redlining denies or limits access to essential public and private sector goods and services, and capital especially mortgages to targeted groups based on race, socioeconomic status, and place of residency while making public and private sector goods and services, and capital especially mortgages more available in more racially homogeneous, White neighborhoods (Aalbers, 2011; Squires & Kubrin, 2005). Thus, redlining causes the disinvestment of targeted areas often having disproportionate concentrations of poverty and racial and ethnic minorities (Aalbers, 2011; Squires & Kubrin, 2005). Redlining undermines local housing markets lowering property values and erodes tax bases causing the more affluent and mobile residents to leave. Redlining often culminates in neighborhood abandonment that ultimately deteriorates communities.

The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created to refinance urban mortgages and make low interest loans to owners of foreclosed real estate. HOLC is often blamed for the institutionalization of redlining through its creation of a loan risk rating system that used residential maps to indicate the risk of providing capital especially mortgages and making real estate investments by neighborhood. The rating system had four categories of risk assigned the colors green, blue, yellow, and red. Map areas ranged from those colored green, contained within green lines, or “greenlined” with low to negligible risk and high profit potential compared to areas colored red, contained within red lines, or “redlined” with high risk and low profit potential (Aalbers, 2011; Jackson, 1985; Sharp, 2008; Squires & Kubrin, 2005). Thus, HOLC’s rating system established a legacy of neighborhood property values, housing, and residential compositional patterns.

HOLC’s rating system especially its appraisal process had racial, ethnic, and religious components. These components restricted greenlining to homogenous, affluent, White Christian areas, and bluelining applied to stable neighborhoods often including Jewish communities with relatively high socioeconomic status (Aalbers, 2011; Jackson, 1985; Sharp, 2008; Squires & Kubrin, 2005). Yellowlining applied to economically declining areas with relatively poor quality housing, deteriorating infrastructure, low socioeconomic status, and concentrations of racial and ethnic minorities while redlined area residents, who were disproportionately members of high poverty and minority groups especially African Americans living in poor quality houses, were denied access to financial services and mortgages (Aalbers, 2011; Carr & Kutty, 2008; Freund, 2010; Sharp, 2008; Squires, 2003; Squires & Kubrin, 2005).

Although traditional redlining involves denying, limiting access to, or arbitrarily increasing the cost of capital particularly mortgages to residents within targeted geographic areas, educational redlining applies to public school funding. Educational redlining applies traditional redlining’s practices to public school finance without traditional redlining’s four color geographic coding scheme. Educational redlining is the school finance exclusionary practices that result in the disinvestment of traditionally underserved and under-resourced traditional public schools (TPSs) and districts.

Educational redlining occurs when state funding formulae are not based on the total cost of educating each student. Current state funding formulae do not provide funding in formulaic coordination with local and federal funding. Thus, economically challenged districts lack the funding necessary to provide a quality education commensurate with the most affluent districts. State funding formulae do not fully account for the property wealth and income gap among affluent and poor districts; therefore, do not provide the funding necessary to close the fiscal capacity gap among affluent and poor districts. Instead, state formulae typically provide minimally adequate funding levels that maintain inequitable resource gaps.

Educational redlining denies students living in redlined (i.e., poor) districts equal access to an education commensurate with the quality of education provided by greenlined (i.e., affluent) districts. Redlined districts’ lower educational quality is negatively capitalized in housing values undermining housing markets, property values, and tax bases. This leads to a self-perpetuating adverse cycle in which redlined neighborhoods’ do not have the tax base necessary to properly fund education locally which increases reliance on state and federal aid. However, state and federal funding typically does not fund the full cost to educate all students because of inequitable state and federal formulae. Instead, state funding typically aims to achieve adequacy in funding levels rather than an equitable educational resource allocation among schools and districts.

Like traditional redlining, educational redlining is place-based and adversely affects many of the same communities suffering traditional redlining’s legacy. Educational redlining typically affects urban districts with large concentrations of poverty and racial and ethnic minorities. High poverty districts require more per pupil resources than low poverty districts to provide the same quality education. Thus, educational redlining results in the disinvestment of traditionally under-resourced districts lowering the educational quality provided.

To stop educational redlining, each district should receive the combined local, state, and federal funding to fully cover district educational costs, and account for the district’s fiscal capacity and cumulative educational redlining legacy. State formulaic aid that under funds redlined districts lacking fiscal capacity perpetuates the decline or stagnation of property values, tax bases, and local economies. An equitable state funding formula should account for differences in student education costs and different districts’ differential ability to provide and pay for a quality education.

Current state funding formulae and legislative approaches do not significantly improve educational equity and equal opportunity. Supporting this lack of educational equity and equal opportunity, Metzler (2003) found “no connection can be made between a state’s basic approach to education finance and the equality of educational opportunity provided to students” (p. 564). Although flat grants, foundation grants, percent equalization aid, guaranteed tax base, guaranteed tax yield, and full state funding provide some degree of wealth equalization, these funding approaches make little difference in the equity of their outcomes (Metzler, 2003). Metzler (2003) draws this conclusion despite Coons, Clune, and Sugarman (1970) designing the guaranteed tax base and guaranteed tax yield to achieve wealth neutrality. Metzler (2003) concludes that “almost no characteristic of a state’s school finance program—not even the basic funding approach—was significantly correlated with equity measures” (p. 586). Thus, inequities result from disparities in state school finance formulae especially among affluent and poor schools and districts.

 

 

References

 

Aalbers, M. B. (2011). Place, exclusion, and mortgage markets. Malden, MA:  Wiley-Blackwell.

Carr, J. H., & Kutty, N. K. (2008). Segregation. New York, NY:  Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Coons, J. E., Sugarman, S. D., & Clune, W. H. (1970). Private wealth and public education. Cambridge, MA:  Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Freund, D. M. P. (2010). Colored property. Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press.

Jackson, K. T. (1985). Crabgrass frontier:  The suburbanization of the United States. New York, NY:  Oxford University Press.

Metzler, J. (2003). Inequitable equilibrium:  School finance in the United States. Indiana Law Review, (36)3, 561-608.

Sharp, G. (2008, November 30). 1934 Philadelphia Redlining Map. Retrieved from http://www.thesocietypages.org.

Squires, G. D. (2003). Racial profiling, insurance style:  Insurance redlining and the uneven development of metropolitan areas. Journal of Urban Affairs, 25(4), 391-410.

Squires, G. D., & Kubrin, C. E. (2005). Privileged places:  Race, uneven development, and the geography of opportunity in urban America. Urban Studies, 42(1), 47-68.

 

How the New Jersey and New York State School Finance Formulae Create Educational Equity Gaps

How the New Jersey and New YorkState School Finance Formulae Create Educational Equity Gaps

The rising power of state government (Fusarelli & Cooper, 2009) over education has grown from the states’ increasing domination of school finance and policy making because of the strings attached to state funding.  Legal challenges to funding inequities and disparities led to court decisions such as Serrano v. Priest establishing financial neutrality as the basis for school funding.  Subsequent rulings focused on adequacy and required state governments to provide resources to disadvantaged school districts such that the provision of education adequately met their constitutional requirements.  States have tried to remedy the disparities among districts with the infusion of incremental state funds, regulation, and new or revised school funding formulae.  The courts’ decisions concerning the states’ school funding formulae rely on key provisions of the state constitution in New Jersey and New York.  The New Jersey State Constitution provides “for the maintenance of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all children in the state between the ages of five and eighteen years” (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 10) whereas the New York State Constitution has an education clause known as “the Education Article” (Article 11, section 1) which mandates that “the legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools wherein all the children can be educated” (Shrader, 2007, p. 84). 

Ladson-Billings (2006) underscores the importance of having state school funding formulae that meet or exceed constitutional requirements with her education debt concept.  Ladson-Billings (2006) concept of an education debt refutes the achievement gap notion because it ignores the importance for schools to have the proper financial and human resources with which to achieve proper academic outcomes.  The assumption embedded in the achievement gap is that the blame for schools failing to produce equal test score results among minority and majority students is placed on the students and teachers rather than on the unequal distribution of essential educational inputs.  Ladson-Billings’ (2006) education debt concept reframes the achievement gap in critical race theory’s (CRT) terms of educational inequality by shifting the paradigm to the equity gaps in school funding.

The educational equity gap is a function of the unequal distribution of educational resources among schools that disenfranchises low income urban school districts especially those with high concentrations of minority and special needs student.  This results in continuing educational inequality.  Ladson-Billings (2006) explains how closing the educational equity gap by redistributing financial, material, and human resources requires that schools have the necessary capacity to improve the achievement of all students especially those who are racially, ethnically, and economically disadvantaged.

CRTtakes to task school reformers who fail to recognize that property is a powerful determinant of academic advantage.  Without a commitment to redesign funding formulas, one of the basic inequities of schooling will remain in place and virtually guarantee the reproduction of the status quo.  (Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 32)  

Shifting the paradigm to equalizing school funding for all schools according to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and unique student needs is at the core of the school finance litigation and funding formulae forNew JerseyandNew York. 

Legal Background 

New Jersey. 

The judiciary’s heightened role inNew Jerseyschool finance reform began in 1970 when four cities (East Orange,Jersey City,Paterson, andPlainfield) challenged the constitutionality of state’s school funding system, arguing that large wealth based variations in per pupil expenditures across districts deprived students in low-wealth communities of achieving a thorough and efficient education.  The large disparities in school funding were a function of large disparities in property tax bases especially among affluent and poor districts.  New Jersey’s education finance system had used a guaranteed tax base formula (GTB) to address these disparities that enabled affluent districts to raise disproportionately more property taxes at correspondingly lower tax rates with which to fund their schools at higher levels than poor districts. 

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Robinson v. Cahill and defined a “thorough and efficient” (T&E) education as one that “Embraces that educational opportunity which is needed in the contemporary setting to equip a child for his role as a citizen and competitor in the labor market” (Robinson I, 1973, p. 295).  BecauseNew Jersey’s GTB formula failed to equalize school spending across districts, these inequalities disproportionately disadvantaged poor urban districts from providing at least an adequate education.  But the Robinson litigation focused more on the intricacies of the school funding formulae and its resource equalization effects across school districts than on the educational components of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools. 

The New Jersey Supreme Court “accepted the legislature’s definition of T&E, the input and process standards included in the state’s school finance reform law – the Public School Education Act of 1975 (more commonly called Chapter 212)” (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 10) and struck down the state’s school funding system in Robinson v. Cahill based on the state constitution’s education clause.  These actions culminated in Robinson v. Cahill V in 1976 in which the New Jersey Supreme Court shifted their standard for adequacy from economic disparities to substantial educational content.  Goertz and Edwards (1999) explain how spending parity would no longer be the main criteria in the Court’s determining whether a school funding formula was constitutional, “without sufficient resources, other measures of an adequate education will not satisfy the constitutional mandate” (Goertz & Edwards, 1999, p. 10).

 The New Jersey Supreme Court used the “thorough and efficient system of free public schools” clause more as a unifying concept to address fiscal resources and the relationship of financial resources to educational outcomes in Robinson v. Cahill while focusing increasingly on “thorough” education in terms of financial and programmatic inputs and outcomes in its Abbott v. Burke decisions.  The Court defined the role that school funding plays in enabling a district to provide a thorough and efficient education and “broadened its definition of a T&E education especially as it applied to disadvantaged students in urban communities” in its Abbott rulings (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 11) as Goertz and Weiss explain: 

 In 1981, five years after the implementation of Chapter 212, the Education Law Center (ELC) challenged the constitutionality of this funding law on behalf of students from four cities (Camden, East Orange, Irvington, and Jersey City). . . .  Addressing the court’s new focus on substantive educational opportunities, the plaintiffs charged in this new case, Abbott v. Burke, thatNew Jersey’s education finance system caused not only significant educational expenditure disparities but also vast programmatic differences between poor urban and wealthy suburban school districts.  (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 11) 

 In its Abbott v. Burke decisions, the Court’s ruled that the unequal distribution of financial, material, and human resources inputs resulted in funding disparities among the Abbott and affluent districts that prevented the Abbott school districts from providing a thorough and efficient education. 

The Court increasingly raised the threshold for meeting its constitutional standard for a thorough and efficient education in its Abbott rulings.  The Court decided in Abbott v. Burke, 1990, the second Abbott case, that spending disparities among the Abbott and affluent districts, especially those with a district factor group (DFG) code of I or J, demonstrated an inadequate level of education in poor urban districts and consequently established the kinds and quality levels of the educational programs, personnel, and facilities in affluent suburban districts as the adequacy standards for poor urban districts.  As a result, the Court ordered the state legislature to design a new or revised funding system to equalize spending for the regular education programs among poor urban districts and property rich districts as well as to provide additional funds to meet the special educational needs of urban districts to remedy their disadvantages.  This ruling led to the Quality of Education Act (QEA) which replaced the state’s GTB formula with a foundation aid formula.  Although the foundation level less the amount raised by a school district at a state equalized tax rate was defined as the minimum spending level, the “maximum foundation budget” (Firestone, Goertz, & Natriello, 1997, p. 27) was defined as the combined amount from all governmental sources (Firestone et al., 1997, p. 28).

The Court declared QEA unconstitutional in Abbott v. Burke III, 1994, because it failed to equalize funding among Abbott and property rich districts as well as to meet the special needs of urban students.  The New Jersey State legislature enacted the Comprehensive Educational Improvement and Financing Act of 1996 (CEIFA) that focused more on academic outcomes and established “a set of input standards, such as class size, administrators/teachers per student, schools per district, and types and amount of classroom supplies, services and materials, that are considered to be sufficient to achieve the state content standards” (Goertz & Edwards, 2009, p. 19) in response to the Court’s decision.  Baker, Green, and Richards (2008) explain: 

 The CEIFA defined an adequate education in terms of academic standards and provided funding on the basis of what a hypothetical school district would need to achieve these standards.  The CEIFA also provided aid for two supplemental programs designed to address the disadvantages of SNDs:  demonstrably effective program aid (DEPA), and early childhood program aid (ECPA).  (Baker, Green, & Richards, 2008, p. 158).  

 But instead of fully funding CEIFA’s school funding formula as required by law, the state froze financial aid to schools at their 2001-02 school year levels regardless of any increases in enrollment, rising costs, and state and federal under funded mandates.  The state aid shortfall’s impact was hardest on those districts that were most dependent upon state aid.  During the 2005-06 school year the statewide shortfall amounted to $846 million which translated into per pupil shortfalls of approximately $1,627 in non-AbbottDFGA and B districts, $758 inDFGC through H districts, $386DFGI and J districts, and $188 in Abbott districts (Reock, 2007, pp. 1-9).  Dr. Reock found that “the state aid freeze caused massive under-funding of many school districts throughout the state, especially poor non-Abbott districts, and contributed to the property tax problem in the state” (Sciarra, 2008, p. 4).

 The Court declared CEIFA unconstitutional in Abbott v. Burke IV, 1997, because it neither linked educational outcome standards for all districts nor met the state’s adequacy goals.  The Court found that the State ofNew Jersey failed to show how its resource delivery system model underlying the foundation amount was tied to the state’s Core Curriculum Content Standards:

 In the absence of documentation demonstrating that the CEIFA model provided sufficient resources to educate students in districts with high concentrations of poverty, the Court required an interim remedy:  Abbott districts would receive “parity aid,” or an amount equal to the average regular education per pupil expenditures in the State’s wealthiest districts.  (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, p. 4) 

 In addition, CEIFA failed to meet the Court’s three fundamental tests of constitutionality: 

 The Court established a three-prong test of the constitutionality of CEIFA.  First, does the law establish standards for defining a thorough and efficient education?  Second, does the State provide adequate resources to ensure the achievement of a T&E education?  And, third, does the law meet the special needs of disadvantaged urban students?  (Goertz & Edwards, 2009, p. 21) 

 EIFA failed to address the special needs of Abbott districts because its efficient school district model was not based on the characteristics of the Abbott districts.  The Court ordered the state to provide parity aid to remedy the unconstitutional funding and educational disparities as well as to equalize per pupil expenditures among affluent and Abbott districts.  Although the Court ordered “whole school reform designs” in Abbott v. Burke V, 1998, (Goertz & Edwards, 2009, p. 26) and ruled in Abbott XX, 2009, that the School Finance Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA) was constitutional, Superior Court Judge Doyne, who was appointed as special master by the Court, found that Governor Christie’s school funding reductions “violate the state’s mandate to provide children ‘a thorough and efficient’ education” (Rundquist & Calefati, 2011, p. 1) and, therefore, whether SFRA continues to be found constitutional depends on how the Court rules on Judge Doyne’s findings. 

 New York.  

 In 1978, several property-poor Long Island, New YorkCity, and other large urban districts combined to challenge the state’s school finance formula in Levittown v. Nyquist because of the funding disparities among their school districts and the state’s property-rich districts.  The New York State Court of Appeals ruled “that the state’s constitution guaranteed all New York children an opportunity for a ‘sound basic education’” (Chambers, Levin, & Parrish, 2006, p. 3) based on the New York State Constitution’s education clause, known as the Education Article, which states that “the legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools wherein all the children can be educated” (Shrader, 2007, p. 84) even though the Court found that the constitution did not mandate equal funding.  Although the finding in Levittown v. Nyquist was that funding inequities did not violate the state’s Education Article, the Court did not define a sound basic education (Chambers, et al., 2006, p. 3).

 The New York State Education Department (NYSED) assembled a task force to define a “sound basic education” in response to the Court’s decision.  The task force defined a “sound basic education” in terms of learning standards that resulted in a “state sponsored research and public engagement process culminating in 1996 in the issuance of the Regents Learning Standards” (Chambers, et al., 2006, p. 4).  These standards established benchmarks for student achievement in seven academic content areas and ultimately the definition of adequacy “as providing to all students a full opportunity to meet the Regents Learning Standards” (Chambers, et al., 2006, p. 3).

 Standards are at the core of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s (CFE) lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of New YorkState’s education funding system in CFE v. State of New York, 1993.  CFE argued that the state’s school finance system failed to provide students with a sufficient opportunity to receive a state constitutionally guaranteed “sound basic education” particularly inNew York City (Shrader, 2007, p. 84).  In CFE I, 1995, the Court of Appeals ruled that the state has an “obligation to provide ‘a sound basic education to all the children of the state,’” including “the basic literacy, calculating, and verbal skills necessary to enable children to eventually function productively as civic participants capable of voting and serving on a jury” but the Court declared that even adequate facilities and teachers fulfill the state’s responsibility (Shrader, 2007, pp. 84-85).  As a result, the Court of Appeals overturned the Appellate Division.

 In CFE II, 2001, CFE prevailed in trial court and State Supreme Court Justice DeGrasse declared that “the school funding formula unconstitutional because it failed to supply New York City school children with a ‘sound basic education’ as required” and affirmed the essential components of “a sound basic education” (Shrader, 2007, pp. 85-86).  Justice DeGrasse required the State of New York to ensure that all of its public schools provided an equal opportunity for a sound basic education for all of its students, to ensure that all of the Court’s standards were met, and to perform a costing-out study to determine the costs of providing a sound basic education as well as to serve as the basis for a new school finance formula.

 In CFE III, 2002, the Appellate Division reversed Justice DeGrasse’s 2001 decision declaring that “Justice DeGrasse exceeded the ‘minimally adequate’ standards stipulated in the Court of Appeals’ 1995 ruling” (Shrader, 2007, p. 88).  But in CFE IV, 2003, the New York Court of Appeals overturned the Appellate Court’s decision as it “rejected the state’s argument that it had satisfied its duty to provide a ‘sound basic’ education by providing New York City students with an 8^th- or 9^th-grade education” (Baker, et al., 2008, p. 157) and, therefore, “New York State’s current educational funding arrangements were definitively determined to be unconstitutional and required to be altered to ensure that school funding is adequate” (Chambers, et al., 2006, p. 4).  As a result, in CFE V, 2003, “the New York Court of Appeals commissioned a study to determine the cost of providing an adequate education for New York City” (Baker, et al., 2008, p. 159). 

 State School Finance Formulae

 New Jersey.  

The driving force behind the School Finance Reform Act of 2008 (SFRA) was the need for a “formulaic remedy for all districts” based on actual community characteristics that could be applied equitably to all school districts and would address the increased funding targeted primarily to Abbott districts as well as the inequities that had resulted from the imbalance of resources among districts (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, p. 4).  SFRA replaced CEIFA and the state’s unique Abbott remedies of parity aid and supplemental funding with one formula because the New Jersey State Supreme Court found CEIFA’s funding provisions unconstitutional.  Although SFRA’s formula contains “three major components:  equalization aid, categorical aid, and adjustment aid” (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 28), it calculates aid in two ways:  “wealth-equalized and categorical” (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, p. 19).

 SFRA’s wealth-equalized aid is allocated according to each district’s ability to raise enough local revenue based on its equalized property valuation and aggregate district income, both of which are indexed using the state wealth multipliers, to support its adequacy budget.  The adequacy budget represents the amount of resources necessary for a district to meet state imposed standards or outcomes such as the Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS) and includes: 

•  The base amount for elementary, middle, and high school students
• The weights for at-risk and limited English proficiency (LEP) and county vocational students
• Two-thirds of the census-based costs for the general special education category
• All of the census-based costs for speech (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, p. 19) 

 New Jersey’s adequacy based school funding formula seems to have been developed in response to the Court’s demands for “standard-based reforms” that “have ‘judicially manageable’ tools that allow them to devise effective remedial orders” (Rebell, 2002, p. 219).

 Equalization aid is calculated using a “foundation formula based on an ‘adequacy budget’” which includes “funding for the regular education program and costs for student poverty (“at-risk” aid), limited English proficiency (LEP) students, and special education services” (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 28).  A district’s adequacy budget, therefore, equals the amount calculated according to the following formula: 

 A district’s adequacy budget equals the total of all of the base student costs plus at-risk student costs plus LEP student costs plus the combined costs of all LEP students who are also eligible for free or reduced-price lunch plus the special education census-based costs that are wealth-equalized together times the Geographic Cost Adjustment (GCA).  (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, pp. 19-20) 

 In contrast to wealth-equalized aid, categorical aid is not based on a district’s ability to levy local property taxes but is determined by multiplying the cost factor for a particular category by the number of students that qualify for the aid (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, p. 19).  The purpose of SFRA’s adjustment aid is to hold districts harmless but only in the short term:

 Adjustment aid is a save-harmless program for districts that receive less state aid under SFRA than they did in 2007-2008, particularly Abbott districts where state approved expenditures exceeded their SFRA adequacy budgets.  For 2008-09, the state guarantees that all districts will receive a minimum of 102% of their 2007- 08 state aid.  Adjustment aid will be reduced in the out-years as equalization and categorical aids grow.  (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 28) 

A district’s state aid allocation equals the amount calculated according to the following formula:  state aid equals a district’s adequacy budget amount less the district’s local fair share amount to which the district’s amount of categorical aid is added (New Jersey Department of Education, 2007, p. 25). 

 SFRA’s impact on the Abbott districts was significant because it eliminated the Abbott’s special needs district designation and rescinded the Court prescribed remedies such as requiring spending parity with affluent districts and providing additional funding for supplemental programs.  Although SFRA maintained the Abbott districts’ facilities aid, it increased: 

 The “fair share” or expected local tax revenues from the Abbott districts.  The local share attributed to Abbott districts under SFRA is nearly double what they currently raise in local taxes. . . .  This provision overrides the court’s requirement that increases in local revenues be limited due to high levels of municipal overburden in these districts.  (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 31)  

Abbott districts received less equalization aid as a result of having to raise their required local fair share even though Abbott districts were prevented from levying the necessary amount of property taxes to raise their local fair share beyond a four percent increase (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 31).  Although SFRA benefited most low and middle income non-Abbott districts but only if these districts also increased their local property tax levies by the four percent state maximum, most high income districts with DFGcode I or J lost aid especially “categorical aid for special needs students” as a result of SFRA’s wealth equalizing (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 32).  The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in Abbott XX, 2009, that “SFRA provides the appropriate ‘measuring stick’ against which to gauge the resources needed to achieve a thorough and efficient education for every child in the state” (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 35).  

New York.   

The conceptual framework that has framed school finance inNew YorkStateis focused on achieving adequacy.  This conceptual framework is based on trying to achieve wealth and need equalization among school districts.  To meet this definition of adequacy,New YorkStateuses the Regents Learning Standards as the barometer against which to determine whether a district is meeting its adequacy requirements as established by the school finance formula.  This adequacy concept focuses on the provision of an adequate education that equalizes outcomes rather than inputs so that all students will have an equal opportunity to receive an education which meets or exceeds state standards.  The rationale undergirding the adequacy concept is that a district’s financial resources should be sufficient and adjusted for cost variations beyond a local school district’s control to enable the district to meet or exceed the adequacy standards and to provide an opportunity for all students to meet the Regents Learning Standards.  

TheNew YorkStateschool finance formula is similar to the SFRA formula in terms of the ways in which it distributes aid:  flat grants, wealth-equalized aid, and effort or expense-based aid.  Wealth equalized aid is distributed by the state “in inverse proportion to local fiscal capacity to offset dramatic differences in the ability of school districts to raise local revenues” and in terms of an equalized per pupil amount while expense-based aid is based on the state share of a district’s actual approved spending (University of the State of New York & The New York State Education Department, 2010, p. 9).  Although flat grants per pupil distribute the same amount of state aid per pupil in every district and this aid is not wealth equalized while lump-sum grants are distributed progressively based a district’s total property value and income, the New York State school finance formula’s aid relies on a foundation amount.  Total foundation aid equals selected foundation aid (a district’s foundation aid per pupil but not less than $500) times selected Total Aidable Foundation Pupil Units (TAFPU) (University of the State of New York & The New York State Education Department, 2010, p. 21).  This aid is based on the cost of providing general education services, compared to the instructional costs of a successful school district, and is adjusted annually for the percentage increase in the consumer price index (CPI) (University of the State of New York & The New York State Education Department, 2010, p. 21).

 The New York State School Tax Relief (NYSTAR) program, enacted on August 7, 1997, as the New York State Real Property Tax Law, is a school property tax rebate program that is designed to lower local school property taxes and, in particular, the tax price of school property taxes with the intention of causing local school districts to increase their spending and, thereby, the level of the educational programs and services that they provide.  NYSTAR providesNew Yorkhomeowners with a partial exemption of a portion of their school property taxes as levied only on owner-occupied primary residences.  The school district will continue to receive the same amount of property tax revenue because New York State reimburses the district to make up for what would otherwise be lost revenue as a result of the rebate as long as the district maintains the existing tax rate.

 The NYSTAR program has two types of exemptions:  Basic NYSTAR and Enhanced NYSTAR. 

Basic NYSTAR is available for owner-occupied, primary residences where the owner’s total income is less than $500,000.  Basic NYSTAR works by exempting the first $30,000 of the full value of a home from school taxes. . . . Enhanced NYSTAR provides an increased benefit for the primary residences of senior citizens (age 65 and older) with qualifying incomes.  For qualifying seniors, Enhanced NYSTAR exempts the first $60,100 of the full value of their home from school taxes. (New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, 2011, p. 1) 

 Baker (2011b) concludes that NYSTAR aid is allocated inequitably and disproportionately benefitsNew YorkState’s affluent school districts: 

1.  That STAR aid in particular is allocated to more affluent downstate school districts;
2. ThatSTARaid, by reducing the price to local homeowners of raising an additional dollar in taxes to their schools, encouraged increased local spending on schools;
3. That when the relative efficiency of school districts is measured in terms of increases in measured test scores, given additional dollars spent,STARaid appears to have encouraged less efficient spending. STARaid enabled affluent suburban districts to spend on other things not directly associated with measured outcomes, but things those communities still desired for their schools.
4. ThatSTARaid contributes to inequities across districts in a system that is already highly inequitable. (Baker, 2011b, p. 3) 

 The homeowner’s property value is reduced by the amount of the NYSTAR exemption and then divided by an equalization rate. New YorkState’s equalization rate equals the ratio of the homeowner’s total assessed property value less the NYSTAR exemption divided by the homeowner’s total market value whereby the district’s host municipality determines assessed property values andNew YorkStatedetermines market values.       NYSTAR is, therefore, a state funded school property tax exemption which makes NYSTAR a state school financial aid program. 

 A district’s foundation aid equals its foundation amount times the Pupil Need Index (PNI) times the Regional Cost Index (RCI) all combined, less its expected minimum local contribution or what would be referred to as their local fair share inNew Jersey.  The RCI reflects regional variations in purchasing power aroundNew YorkStatebased on the wages of non-school professionals.  The PNI reflects the costs of providing extra time and help for disadvantaged and special needs students to succeed.  PNI equals one plus the district’s Extraordinary Needs (EN) percentage and ranges between one and two.  The PNI adjustments are based on a school district’s concentrations of at-risk and disadvantaged students (University of the State of New York & The New York State Education Department, 2010, pp. 21-22).  The expected minimum local contribution is an amount that a district is expected to raise on its own and spend as its share of the total cost of general education which equals the lesser of the two following calculations: 

•  The selected actual value per pupil times a tax factor of 0.0137 times income per pupil relative to the state average which is capped between 0.65 and 2.00. 
• The district’s foundation amount times its PNI times its RCI all together times one minus its Foundation Aid State Sharing Ratio. 

 The foundation aid state sharing ratio compares a district’s wealth measures to the state average wealth measures.  It is computed by calculating the district’s Combined Wealth Ratio (CWR) that is a measure of district’s fiscal capacity.  A district’s CWR is calculated by multiplying a district’s actual property value per pupil and then dividing this amount by $564,900 which is then multiplied by 0.50.  This amount is then added to the total of the district’s income per pupil which is divided by $177,200 and then multiplied by 0.50 (University of the State of New York & The New York State Education Department, 2010, pp. 24-27).  The state sharing ratio is the state aid to local fiscal capacity ratio which is inversely related to a district’s wealth as compared to the state average and this ratio is multiplied by 1.05 only for high need/resource capacity districts (University of the State of New York & The New York State Education Department, 2010, p. 25). 

 State Finance Formulae Data

 New Jersey.  

 The New Jersey school finance formula, SFRA, distributes aid to school districts primarily through a foundation formula.  Aid calculations are based on a per pupil adequacy budget developed by the state that represents what the state believes each district should spend to provide the level of education necessary for its students to meet or exceed the state’s educational standards as contained in the CCCS.  SFRA adjusts the per pupil baseline amount by applying weighting factors to account for the additional costs of educating students with disadvantages and special needs.  These weights are then multiplied by the number of students who qualify for those need categories within the district and by a regional cost adjustment factor in ways similar to those employed inNew YorkState.  The per pupil baseline amount reflects the cost to educate a typical elementary school student and has a weighting factor of one.  The weights increase for students enrolled in middle, high, and vocational school as well as for those students living in poverty. 

 A district’s adequacy budget is funded by both local district and state revenues.  A district’s local fair share is the amount the formula dictates that the district must contribute toward funding its adequacy budget.  The local fair share is based on the formula’s calculation of a district’s total income and property values or wealth as compared to those measures for other districts across the state which resembles the calculations of theNew Yorkschool finance formula for similar components.  The formula attempts to equalize property values, personal income, and local property tax burdens by calculating state aid based on the wealth and the local fair share of each district.  The formula deducts a district’s local fair share from its adequacy budget to determine the amount of state aid the district receives that is referred to as the district’s equalization aid.  A district, however, only receives state equalization aid if its local fair share is less than its adequacy budget and it receives no state equalization aid if its local fair share is greater than its adequacy budget.

 The formula compares a district’s current spending level with its per pupil adequacy budget.  Although a district may spend more than its adequacy budget amount, state aid increases are capped at 10% for districts spending more than their adequacy budgets as compared to a 20% cap on those districts that are under spending their adequacy budgets.  The formula requires a district to increase its property tax levies if it is falling short of providing its local fair share.  A district that is over spending its adequacy budget amount and whose local property tax revenues exceed its adequacy budget is subject to the two percent giveback provision.  In this case, the district is required to apply the amount of its state aid increase that exceeds two percent toward local property tax relief.  But districts that are under spending their adequacy budgets are not subject to the two percent giveback provision.

 The percentage of students receiving a free or reduced price lunch is regarded as a reliable indicator of a school district’s students’ economic need, disadvantage, or poverty level.  Graph one (see Appendix A) shows the relationship of total state aid, as determined by the foundation formula, to the percentage of students who receive a free or reduced price lunch for all New Jersey school districts.  This graph shows a relatively flat distribution of state aid relative to the percentage of a district’s students who receive a free or reduced price lunch until the 40% level is reached when the upward slope of the distribution of state aid becomes rather positive through the 80% level.  Although there seems to be fewer districts having a percentage of students who receive a free or reduced price lunch that exceeds 40%, the sharp upward slope beginning at the 40% level seems to indicate that the formula becomes more sensitive to districts with extremely high concentrations of students who live in poverty or near the poverty level.

 SFRA seems to provide much more categorical state aid for at-risk students and students with special needs such as those who qualify for a free or reduced price lunch, special education, as LEP or English language learners (ELL), or are economically disadvantaged especially for those districts with high concentrations of students with these characteristics.  Affluent districts receive categorical state aid for at-risk students and students with special needs to the extent that their student populations meet the formula’s criteria, however, two-thirds of all state special education aid and all of the state’s at-risk student aid is included within the formula’s foundation per pupil amount and is thereby subject to the formula’s district wealth equalization process.  It could be argued, therefore, that those districts with high concentrations of students receiving a free or reduced price lunch are also high poverty districts because affluent districts seem to have proportionately fewer students receiving a free or reduced price lunch, qualifying for special education, are LEP or ELL, or are living in or around the poverty level.  Also, state aid to affluent districts is wealth equalized which seems to indicate that affluent districts receive proportionately less categorical aid and formula foundation aid for at-risk students and students with special needs than poor districts. 

 Graph two (see Appendix B) shows the relationship of total state aid, as determined by the foundation formula, to the base cost per pupil adjusted for the student’s grade level.  This graph shows a relatively flat distribution of state aid despite a number of outliers below $12,000 relative to the base cost per pupil which does not seem to indicate a meaningful relationship.  Although there are a number of outlying districts receiving higher amounts of state aid between the levels of roughly $10,000 and $11,000 base cost per pupil, the relatively flat distribution of state aid may result from the fact that total state aid incorporates the base cost in its formulaic calculations.  Also, because the total state aid plots do not reflect which districts are over spending their adequacy budget amounts, have local property tax revenues that exceed their adequacy budgets, and as a result are required to apply the amount of their state aid increase that exceeds two percent toward local property tax relief, total state aid levels for these affluent districts could be overstated because a significant portion of their state aid is not applied to their district’s schools.  These factors seem to combine to make the graph less meaningful. 

 Graphs three and four (see Appendices C and D) for all New Jersey school districts showing the relationship of district income per pupil and property value per pupil respectively to the percentage of students receiving a free or reduced price lunch show a distinctly flat distribution, despite a few affluent district outliers without students who qualify for a free or reduced price lunch, relative to the student poverty or economic need factor.  Graphs five, six, and seven (see Appendices E, F, and G) for all New Jersey school districts showing the relationship of local fair share, aggregate income, and a district’s 2009 fiscal year property tax revenues respectively to the percentage of students receiving a free or reduced price lunch show a rather disbursed distribution relative to the student poverty or economic need factor.  There does not seem to be a meaningful relationship among these variables.

 Graphs eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve (see Appendices H, I, J, K, and L) for all New Jersey school districts showing the relationship of income per pupil, property value per pupil, local fair share, aggregate income, and a district’s 2009 fiscal year property tax revenues respectively to the base cost per pupil adjusted for the student’s grade level do not seem to show meaningful relationships.  A possible explanation for the relative lack of significant distributions in graphs three through twelve is that the formula may have a disproportionately high threshold for districts to receive state aid especially categorical aid for students who qualify for a free or reduced price lunch, special education, as LEP or ELL, as economically disadvantaged, or as otherwise at-risk which in turn results in a higher local fair share calculation.  In addition, SFRA’s use of income in the calculation of a district’s local fair share and measure of wealth distorts state aid distributions such that it disadvantages those districts that are income-rich relative to the state average for income but property-poor relative to the state average of equalized property valuation. 

 New York. 

 Although theNew YorkStateschool finance formula seems conceptually simple, its structure is complex which makes understanding and applying the formula challenging especially in terms of providing an equitable distribution of state aid.  The majority of state aid is determined by a statewide formula that calculates a foundation aid amount for each district.  A district’s foundation aid amount consists of the cost of educating a pupil or the Adjusted Foundation and the cost to the district or the Expected Minimum Local Contribution (EMLC). New YorkStateuses these components in an attempt to equalize state aid based on a district’s wealth and pupil need.  The NYSED analyzes the general and special education costs in successful school districts to calculate a district’s foundation aid amount that approximates the average per pupil cost of typical successful school districts’ educational instruction.

 Foundation aid is based on an enrollment measure called the Average Daily Membership (ADM) that is the maximum possible daily attendance of all students in a district divided by the number of days in which the district’s schools are operating.  The foundation aid amount is calculated by using two specific measures of enrollment:  TAFPU and Total Wealth Foundation Pupil Units (TWFPU).  TAFPU is a weighted pupil count that is used to calculate the Adjusted Foundation.  The NYSED uses different weights for different levels and types of student need such as 1.41 for students with disabilities, 0.50 for students declassified from special education, and 0.12 for students attending summer school.  TWFPU is a weighted pupil count that is used to calculate the EMLC to determine a district’s relative wealth.  TWFPU equals the district’s students’ADMincluding half day Kindergarten students weighted at 0.5 plus the full time equivalent number of resident students attending other public school districts less the district’s number of nonresident students and special education students attending BOCES. 

 A district’s Adjusted Foundation is the formulaic calculation of the estimated cost of educating a student in a typicalNew Yorksuccessful school district that is adjusted for the costs of unique student needs by applying the PNI and regional cost differences through the application of the RCI.  A district’s EMLC is the portion of the district’s total educational cost that is funded by the district according to the state’s formula.  The EMLC is based on a number of wealth factors including the Income Wealth Index (IWI) that is based on a district’s adjusted gross income for the calendar year per TWFPU and is multiplied by the state Adjusted Statewide Average School Tax Rate.

 IWI is a district’s average income per student compared to the statewide average income per student.  The IWI can be neither below 0.65 nor above 2.00.  The flaw inherent in IWI is that the formula treats those districts whose IWI is actually less than 0.65 as if their IWI equaled 0.65 because the formula does not allow the IWI to fall below 0.65.  The most economically disadvantaged districts in the state lose aid as a result of this flaw in the IWI.  Also, the RCI is not as robust as the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) which causes many of the state’s most economically disadvantaged districts to lose aid they would otherwise receive if the GCEI were used instead.  A district’s EMLC is subtracted from its gross foundation aid amount after the gross foundation aid amount is multiplied by the RCI and PNI because a district’s EMLC equals a loss of state aid based on the district’s wealth relative to other districts in the state. 

 The foundation aid amount or the baseline state aid incorporates a number of pupil need based expenditure adjustments.  A district’s foundation aid amount is adjusted for such factors as its pupil need and number of pupils living in poverty or significant economic disadvantage.  Pupil need is determined by the PNI which is based on a district’s poverty and census data.  PNI calculates a district’s number of students with extraordinary needs such as those who qualify for free or reduced price lunches, are LEP, or meet the Census’ poverty requirements because they are so economically disadvantaged and are ages five to seventeen.

Duncombe and Yinger (2004, “Cost Indexes,” para. 2) use a two-year average of the number of students who qualify for free or reduced price lunches because this “variable fluctuates from year to year,” meet the Census’ poverty requirements, and are ages five to seventeen.  Duncombe and Yinger (2004) explain the distinctions among the two primary measures of a student’s economic disadvantage:  qualifying for a free or reduced price lunch and living in poverty aged five to seventeen as well as having LEP.  

Although these two variables are correlated, they are by no means identical. . . .   Moreover, the two variables have different strengths and weaknesses.  The Census poverty variable has the desirable feature that it cannot be manipulated by school officials, but it is not available every year, it is often excluded from data bases maintained by state education departments, and we have no evidence about its accuracy in years not covered by a decennial census.  The subsidized lunch variable has the advantages that it is available every year, is included in many state data bases, and covers a broader population than does the poverty variable.  This variable has the disadvantage, however, that it reflects parental participation decisions, and perhaps even school management policies.  Given these contrasting strengths and weaknesses, we do not believe that either variable dominates the other . . .  One final difference between the two variables arises when another measure of student disadvantage, the share of students with limited English proficiency (LEP), is added to the cost model. . . .  this LEP variable is highly significant in cost models that include the census poverty variable.  In contrast, this variable is not close to significant in models that include the subsidized lunch variable.  Thus, in case ofNew York, the subsidized lunch variable appears to capture the cost effects both of poverty and of LEP . . .  (Duncombe & Yinger, 2004, “Cost Indexes,” paras. 3-4) 

Although the percentage of students eligible for a free or reduced price lunch is a commonly used indicator of a school district’s economic disadvantage or need, because New York State’s formula does not provide aid to offset the full cost of students participating in the free or reduced price lunch program poor districts receive disproportionately less state aid. 

The graph for allNew Yorkschool districts showing the relationship of foundation aid to the percentage of students who receive a free or reduced price lunch has an upward, positive slope.  Graph thirteen (see Appendix M) shows that the level of a district’s foundation aid seems to increase as the percentage of students who receive a free or reduced price lunch increases.  Graph fourteen (see Appendix N) showing the relationship of foundation aid to PNI has an even more significant, positive, and upward slope than the relationship shown in graph thirteen perhaps because PNI is a broader measure of student need.  Although the values of PNI can range only between one and two, PNI is a more inclusive measure of student need because it is based on a district’s concentrations of at-risk and disadvantaged students. 

Although graph fifteen (see Appendix O) showing the relationship of foundation aid to the census poverty rate has a generally positive, upward slope, the points are much more tightly bunched especially in the five to fifteen percent poverty rate range and, therefore, may not reflect a significant or systematic relationship.  PNI covers a broader population than does the census poverty rate and this may contribute to the distribution of points that shows an extremely wide range of foundation aid being provided to low poverty districts such as those with a poverty rate of approximately 15%.  Graph sixteen (see Appendix P) showing the relationship of foundation aid to the pupil need component per free and reduced price lunch plus LEP student seems to be so tightly bunched that it does not provide a meaningful relationship perhaps because the percentage of LEP students by district varies tremendously.  

The amount of foundation aid provided at a given level of pupil need seems to show that many more districts are receiving a great deal more aid than those with the same level of need which indicates that the distribution of foundation aid is regressive.  Baker (2011a) discusses theNew YorkStateschool finance formula’s inequitable distribution of aid: 

 Like many state funding formulas, even though the first (and most logical) iteration of calculations for estimating the district state share of funding would end up providing 0% state aid to many districts, those formulas include a floor of funding – minimum guarantee of state aid. . . . Here, for example, is the effect of New YorkState’s minimum threshold factor on foundation aid.  State share hits 0 at an income/wealth index around 1.0 in the basic calculation. . . .  First, between income/wealth ratios of about 1.0 to 2.0, the actual state share cuts the corner providing more gradually declining aid rather than going straight to 0.  Then, above IWI of 2.0 it never hits 0, but rather levels off providing a minimum allotment of several hundred to about $1,000 per pupil to even the wealthiest districts in the state (which, by the way, are among the wealthiest in the nation!). . . . Many state aid formulas include a variety of other types of aid, some which are distributed in flat amounts across all districts regardless of need, and some which may be even allocated in inverse proportion to what most would consider needs – either local capacity related needs or educational programming and student needs.  Such is the politics of school finance. . . . New YorkState’s piece de resistance is a program calledSTAR, or School Tax Relief program.  In simple terms,STAR provides state aid in disproportionate amounts to wealthy communities to support property tax relief. . . .  ExcludingSTAR aid to NYC, the aid program in 2008-09 provided $642 million in aid to districts with an income/wealth ratio over 1.0.!  . . . Note that our recent report on school funding fairness … identifiedNew YorkState (along withIllinois andPennsylvania) as having one of the most regressively financed systems in the nation.  On average, low poverty districts have greater state and local revenue than higher poverty ones, yet the state is still allocating significant sums of aid to low poverty districts!  . . . many of these wealthier communities are picking up millions inSTAR aid and upwards to a thousand dollars per pupil in basic foundation aid.  Yes, the state is subsidizing the spending – quite significantly – of some of the wealthiest districts in the nation, while maintaining a regressive system as a whole.  (Baker, 2011a, pp. 5-8)

 New YorkState’s use of foundation aid is highly regressive. 

 TheNew YorkStateformula uses a district’s CWR which is the ratio of a district’s per pupil income and property wealth to the state average for each variable that is calculated to determine a district’s wealth relative to other districts.  TheNew YorkStateformula uses CWR to wealth equalize district state aid.  The CWR not only measures a district’s wealth but also determines a district’s ability to fund its school system relative to other districts in the state.  An average wealth district, therefore, will have a CWR equal to a value of one while more affluent districts will have a CWR greater than one and economically disadvantaged districts will have a CWR less than one.

 The CWR is used to determine a district’s sharing ratio that is included within the calculation of a district’s foundation aid, is the proportion of the State’s aid contribution, and equals the formula of one minus the district’s wealth measure (i.e., CWR) divided by the state average times the district’s local contribution percentage.  Although CWR measures a district’s wealth using the actual valuation of the district’s property and income, it does not fully account for unusual circumstances or fluctuations in a district’s property valuation or income such as during times when the state averages for property wealth and income decrease while the district’s wealth and income remain unchanged.  This would cause the district’s CWR to increase relative to the state averages causing the district to receive less state aid despite the fact that the district’s wealth and income levels remained the same. 

 Graphs seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen (see Appendices Q, R, and S) for all New York State school districts showing the relationship of total state aid to the percentage of students receiving a free or reduced price lunch, PNI, and the census poverty rate respectively show a significant flat or slightly negatively sloped distribution of state aid relative to the student need factors despite some outliers.  Also, graphs twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two (see Appendices T, U, and V) for all New York State school districts showing the relationship of CWR to the percentage of students receiving a free or reduced price lunch, PNI, and the census poverty rate respectively show a significant flat or slightly negatively sloped distribution of state aid relative to the student need factors.  There does not seem to be a meaningful relationship of total state aid and CWR respectively to the pupil need component per free and reduced price lunch plus LEP student because graphs twenty-three and twenty-four (see Appendices W and X) show a tightly bunched and almost flat to declining pattern. 

 The flat to slightly negatively sloped distribution of total New York State aid as well as the distribution of district wealth and income relative to the respective state averages for wealth and income as compared to the measures of student need and poverty leads to the conclusion that the amount of combined state and local revenues funding high student need or poverty school districts is disproportionately less than the total revenues funding low poverty or affluent school districts.  These disparities in the distribution of state aid cause inequities in the provision of a quality education across school districts.  The distribution of total state aid, therefore, is regressive because it includes NYSTAR aid and does not effectively equalize wealth or income among school districts.  The NYSTAR aid program is the antithesis of an equitable state aid distribution system based on wealth and income equalization.  TheNew YorkStateschool finance formula causes large, urban, economically disadvantaged school districts to receive significantly less state aid than they would have otherwise received with a progressive distribution. 

 Conclusion

Although the school funding formulae for New Jersey and New York are largely the result of years of litigation brought primarily by members and representatives of disadvantaged students and schools, the formulae for both states have adequacy as their goal.  SFRA and theNew Yorkschool finance formula are similar in terms of the types of aid the state distributes such as foundation, wealth equalization, categorical, and specific adjustment aid.  Both states use standards as the barometer against which to determine whether a district is meeting its adequacy requirements as established by the state school funding formula. New Jerseycompares a district’s educational outcomes to the Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS) whileNew YorkStateuses the Regents Learning Standards. 

But both states’ formulae have components that are readily subject to manipulation. New Jersey’s cost indices and its formulaic restrictions on the Abbott districts’ equalization aid are easily politically manipulated.  A number of these manipulations are manifested in SFRA’s provisions that require the Abbott districts to raise their required local fair share despite the fact that the state prevented the Abbott districts from levying the necessary amount of property taxes to raise their local fair share beyond a four percent increase which resulted in an overall reduction of state aid for the Abbott districts (Goertz & Weiss, 2009, p. 31).  SFRA raised the threshold that defines the level of need especially for students who are at-risk or otherwise disadvantaged which also contributed to a reduction of aid especially for large, urban, poor districts because these districts typically have disproportionately high levels of special needs students.  

Although SFRA’s local fair share calculation was designed in principle to compel school districts to adopt the state average equalized property tax rate in an attempt to equalize property wealth statewide and establish equalized district property values as the basis for a district’s ability to fund its school system based on local property taxes, SFRA uses a district’s income and not just a district’s equalized  property values as the only or primary measure of a district’s ability to fund its local schools when it calculates a district’s local fair share.  SFRA’s reliance on income in the calculation of a district’s local fair share and measure of wealth shifts the distribution of aid disproportionately away from districts having lower income but higher assessed property values as compared to the state averages for each variable.  This causes SFRA to determine that these districts are artificially wealthier than their actual level of resources and, thereby, to calculate a disproportionately higher local fair share for these districts than would otherwise be the case if a district’s equalized property values were the only measure of a district’s ability to fund its local schools.  This reinforces inequities in the state equalized property assessments and the over reliance on local property taxes as the primary basis for funding local school systems that undergird SFRA’s aid calculations. 

 New York’s foundation funding level is generated by the state aid formula as derived from an adequacy filter based upon a successful school district approach.  Although Baker (2011a) focuses on high school education, his description of the shortcomings of theNew YorkStateschool finance formula apply equally to all levels of schooling inNew YorkState:

•  Either in terms of the analytic approach used (successful school districts) or foundation level adopted in policy, the current foundation funding level in the state aid formula is not grounded in any real estimate of the cost of providing meaningful high school education.

• I explain that the application of the “efficiency” filter based on statewide median spending among successful districts, was arbitrary and I show that this arbitrary decision has the effect of applying different efficiency requirements on downstate and upstate districts – a grossly inequitable assumption. 

• Taking the lower half spending successful districts statewide leads to inclusion of 100% successful districts in some upstate and westernNew Yorkregions, but includes only 1/5 to less than 1/3 of downstate districts.
• Taking the lower half districts statewide rather than by region (RCI region) inappropriately reduces the foundation amount for downstate districts by about 20%. 
• Arbitrarily altering the steps of successful schools analysis creates large swings in estimated foundation levels, especially for downstate districts, calling into question the usefulness of the approach. 
• As originally explained by Baker, Taylor and Vedlitz (2004) successful school districts analysis is highly suspect and easily politically manipulated to generate desired foundation levels.  Successful schools analysis is not a credible method for estimating the costs of meeting empirically defined standards, or constitutional standards. 
• Further, the weighting scheme that leads to the Pupil Need Index (PNI) is not grounded in any empirical analysis of the costs of providing meaningful high school education to populations of varied needs. (Baker, 2011) 

Funding gaps in the adequacy of educational inputs result in concomitant gaps in student achievement and educational outcomes especially in under funded and large, urban, poor school districts inNew Jerseyand particularly inNew YorkState.

 Although the courts in New Jersey and New York State have frequently declared each state’s formula for financing its public schools unconstitutional, each state’s declared educational mission is to enable its public schools to provide at least an adequate education to all students statewide.  As a result of many court rulings in both states, New Jersey and New York State have wrestled with how best to define the content of an adequate education, calculate formulaically the level of spending necessary to provide an adequate education based on the unique needs, costs, and resources of each district, and the appropriate measures of educational outcomes so as to determine whether a district is achieving its adequacy goals.  In response to the many court rulings on their state school finance formulae, New Jersey and New York State primarily use a foundation aid approach that establishes a targeted district spending level which the state deems necessary to meet state adequacy goals and subsidizes to the extent that a district’s local fair share or local minimum contribution is below the state formula’s respective minimum target level.  In this way, both states attempt to address the disparities and inequities in school district spending and funding that are primarily a result of differences in local property tax bases and revenues.  

Achieving educational adequacy means enabling all of the students within a state to meet or exceed the educational outcome standards established by the state.  Although defining educational adequacy in this way is a worthy goal and is theoretically sound, the major obstacles preventing New Jersey and New York State from accomplishing this mission are found in the ways in which each state’s school finance formula is structured, interpreted, and implemented especially in New York State.  The problems inherent in each state’s school finance formula, therefore, could result in the following:

In the aggregate, a state’s education system could be deemed adequate merely on the basis that a sufficient number of students overall achieve an adequate educational outcome – for example, 80% of all students, statewide scoring proficient or higher on state assessments.  That is, adequacy, in isolation means only that a sufficient number of students perform sufficiently well, regardless of who may or may not be left out and regardless of the extent that some children far exceed the “adequacy” threshold.  Significant equity concerns may arise when statewide adequacy is the exclusive focus. . . . At the intersection of educational adequacy and equal opportunity lies the notion that all children, regardless of their individual differences or where they attend school in a state are deserving of equal opportunity to achieve adequate educational outcomes. . . . Where equal educational opportunity provides that each child have equal opportunity to achieve any given set of outcomes, equal opportunity linked with adequacy provides that each child have equal opportunity to achieve a specific set of adequate educational outcomes. (Baker, 2011) 

In conclusion, there is a fundamental problem with theNew JerseyandNew YorkStateschool finance formulae.  Furthermore, it is most likely that this problem will disproportionately affect those students attending the state’s large, urban, poor or otherwise socio-economically disadvantaged school districts.  The major problem is that even if New Jersey and New York State ultimately achieve their adequacy goals, both states will most likely have supported a level of education that is inadequate in terms of providing all students with the skills necessary for success in adult life rather than providing a quality education that meets not only the declared principles that underlie state standards but also the unique needs and priorities of every student statewide. 

 References

 Baker, B. D., Green, P., & Richards, C. E. (2008). Financing education systems.Upper Saddle River,New Jersey:  Pearson Education, Inc. 

 B. D. Baker. (2011a, February 4). Where’s the pork? Mitigating the damage of state aid cuts [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.schoolfinance101.wordpress.com. 

 B. D. Baker. (2011b, April 6). Distilling rhetoric & research on NY State education spending [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.schoolfinance101.wordpress.com.     

 Chambers, J. G., Levin, J. D., & Parrish, T. B. (2006). Examining the relationship between educational outcomes and gaps in funding:  An extension of the New York Adequacy Study, American Institutes for Research, 81(21), 1-32. 

 Duncombe, W. D., & Yinger, J. (2004). How much does a disadvantaged student cost? Syracuse, New York:  Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Retrieved from http:/www.surface.syr.edu/cpr/103. 

 Firestone, W. A., Goertz, M. E., & Natriello, G. (1997). From cashbox to classroom:  The struggle for fiscal reform and educational change in New Jersey.New York:  Teachers College Press.  

 Fusarelli, B. C., & Cooper, B. S. (Eds.) (2009). The rising state:  How state power is transforming our nation’s schools.Albany,New York:  SUNY Press. 

 Goertz, M. E., & Edwards, M. (1999). In search of excellence for all:  The courts and New Jerseyschool finance reform. Journal of Education Finance, 25(1), 5-32. 

 Goertz, M. E., & Weiss, M. (2009). Assessing success in school finance litigation:  The case of New Jersey.New York,New York:  ColumbiaUniversity Press.

 Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt:  Understanding achievement in U.S.schools. Educational Researcher 35(7)3-12. 

 Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? In E. Taylor, D. Gillborn, & G. Ladson-Billings (Eds.), Foundations of critical race theory in education (pp. 17-36).  

 New Jersey Department of Education (2007). A formula for success:  All children, all communities,Trenton,New Jersey:  New Jersey Department of Education.   

 New YorkStateConstitution, Article XI, Sec. 1. 

 New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (2011). STAR – New York State’s school tax relief program. New York:  Office of Real Property Tax Services. Retrieved from http://www.orps.state.ny.us/star/faq.htm.   

 Rebell, M. A. (2002). Educational adequacy, democracy, and the courts. In T. Ready, C. Edley, Jr., & C. E. Snow (Eds.), National Research Council, Achieving high educational standards for all:  Conference summary (pp. 218-268).Washington,D.C.:  The National Academies Press. 

 Reock, E. C. Jr. (2007). Estimated financial impact of the ‘freeze’ of state aid on New Jersey school districts, 2002-03 to 2005-06. Newark, New Jersey:  Institute on Education Law and Policy, Rutgers University. Retrieved from http:/www./ielp.rutgers.edu/docs/CEIFA_Reock_Final.pdf.  

Robinson v. Cahill, 303 A.2d 273 (1973).  

 Rundquist, J., & Calefati, J. (2011, March 23). Judge slams Christie’s cuts to school aid. The Star-Ledger, p. 1.

 Sciarra, D. G. (2008). Certification of Dr. Ernest C. Reock, Jr. for the Supreme Court of New Jersey in support of the plaintiffs’ opposition to the School Funding Reform Act of 2008. Newark, New Jersey:  Education Law Center. Retrieved from http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/elcnews_080521_ReockCertification.pdf.  

 Shrader, D. W. (2007). Morse, Yinger, and the campaign for fiscal equity:  School finance reform in New York. Educational Change, 75, Spring 2005-2007.   

University of the State of New York, & The New York State Education Department (2010). State aid to schools:  A primer pursuant to laws of 2010.New York:  New York State Education Department. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix C

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix E

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix F

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix G

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix H

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix K

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix L

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix M

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix N

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix O

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix Q

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix R

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix T

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix U

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix V

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix W

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix X

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Superior Alternative to Tracking or Detracking

To solve the challenges confronting our nation so that we can continue to improve our quality of life, we must improve education for all students because education is the cornerstone of our civilization and we need the talent level raised for every student if we are to accomplish this goal.  But our schools must provide more challenge for all students in all classes if our nation is to improve education.  State mandated restrictions and school district imposed curriculum limitations must be lifted to empower teachers to teach more and better classes as well as for all students to have the opportunity to learn as much as they possibly can. 

While performing consulting services for a wide range of school districts including Abbott, urban non-Abbott, suburban,DFG“I and J’s,” and rural districts, I have listened to students discussing the perceived shortcomings in the quality of their education and one the most commonly heard complaints is the lack of challenge especially in middle school and high school  classes.  Whether I attend the respective board of education meetings for these districts or interview parents as part of my research, I have learned how parents readily agree.  Students feel as if their classes too often level down to the lowest common denominator.  Students report that teachers spend too much time trying to raise the performance of the lowest common denominator while the more talented students as well as those most in need of instruction or those who are members of disadvantaged groups languish. 

Rubin (2003) and Wenger (2008) address many of these issues involved with how to properly perform instruction for all students especially classroom based instruction from perspectives that add value.  Rubin (2003) performed a year-long ethnographic case study of a group of students in detracked ninth grade English and history classes in a diverse urban high school.  Rubin (2003, p. 540) explores not only detracking which she describes as the “conscious organization of students into academically and racially heterogeneous classrooms” but also the kinds of social interactions that result from detracking both within and outside of the classroom.  Wenger (2008) presents a learning theory which is based on the “communities of practice” which is a process of social participation that students develop for learning and making meaning.  Her theory combines four essential components:  

Meaning:  a way of talking about our (changing) ability – individually and collectively – to experience our life and the world as meaningful.  Practice: a way of talking about the shared historical and social resources, frameworks, and perspectives that can sustain mutual engagement in action.  Community:  a way of talking about the social configurations in which our enterprises are defined as worth pursuing and our participation is recognizable as competence.  Identity:  a way of talking about how learning changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the context of our communities.  (Wenger, 2008, p. 5) 

Rubin (2003, pp. 540-541) reports that the social dynamics in the “academically and racially heterogeneous classrooms,” which are not based on ability grouping …

were complex and mediated by notions of race, class, and academic competence that were forged in the larger school context.  For students, small groups often proved to be sites of tension and discomfort where fractures of race and class come to the fore.  This article describes how students enacted, or brought to life, the teaching practices of the detracked core program, reshaping them from the teachers’ original intentions.  Sometimes the result was a reiteration of the very inequalities that detracking was designed to address.  (Rubin 2003, p. 541) 

Like tracking, detracking is no panacea. Although detracking may have alleviated many of the shortcomings and group-based inequalities associated with tracking, it seems to have created its own inequities and ills of which the “bad split” is an example Rubin (2003, p. 550).  Perhaps one of the causal factors for the lack of challenge reported by students in my experience is the heterogeneous grouping within each class of students of all levels of ability in the same classroom with the same teacher at the same time.  It is likely that no matter how well qualified is the teacher; however, not even a teacher highly trained in differentiated instruction can overcome the problems of heterogeneous grouping.  It is profoundly difficult to differentiate instruction well enough within a classroom of 25 or more students so that all students benefit equally.  Rubin (2003, p. 556) reflects on this concept when she discusses the students’ priorities for their small work groups in the detracked classroom:  

In contrast to the value that teachers placed on balancing the membership of small groups for racial and academic diversity, students’ concerns about group membership were far more personal and pragmatic.  Students wanted group members who were academically competent, fun to be with, motivating, and respectful.  Many of these attributes were in conflict with the criteria that teachers used when configuring small groups.  (Rubin, 2003, p. 556) 

This fundamental desire on the part of all students to be among peers “who were academically competent, fun to be with, motivating, and respectful” regardless of racial, ethnic, or socio-economic class membership in my experience forces the top students to enroll in Advanced Placement or Honors courses so that their skill levels can be stretched while those students at the other end of the continuum who are generally those with the most severe needs seek remedial assistance. 

Tracking, on the other hand, is the grouping of students according to their level of ability in the same classroom with the same teacher at the same time.  Tracking may reflect the reality that students are not all alike.  Indeed, each student is unique and he/she learns in different ways, at different rates and performs best at varying degrees of course content difficulty.  Grouping classes according to ability may enable teachers to customize instruction so that the entire class not only learns more but also performs at a higher level of achievement.  Moreover, those students at the polar opposite ends of the ability continuum are not disenfranchised.  All students in every grade should be able to raise their achievement levels. 

The fundamental problem with tracking has been one of discriminatory implementation.  But no student should be locked into any track especially one that is lacking in proper content and challenge for that student.  Indeed, all students must be given the opportunity not only to improve their ability but also to advance to a higher level when they have demonstrated such improvement.  Tracking can be most effective when it enables students to benefit from rigorous teaching and is flexible based on the student’s unique abilities.  The reason why tracking and detracking fail to meet the educational needs and priorities of all students is found within the lack of proper classroom capacity.  Because schools too often especially those in urban school districts lack the physical space in which to teach a much wider range of ability groups, schools are faced with a dichotomous choice between tracking and detracking.  

Although I will present my alternative to the current dichotomous choice between tracking and detracking toward the end of this paper, the lack of proper classroom capacity has not always been the reason why all students could not learn and advance based on their unique abilities and time line.  As I recall from our week two readings, Mehan (1992) discussed how school psychologists were instrumental in determining not only the number of students classified as “mentally retarded” but also which students qualified for what is now referred to as special education.  But what is most interesting is that the term “retarded” or “mentally retarded” originated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when our nation was transitioning from one-room schoolhouses (i.e., one classroom for all students was the proper classroom capacity) to age-graded schools which occurred most dramatically in urban areas when large numbers of rural farm families moved to cities.  

Being “retarded” meant being too old for one’s grade or that “retardation” meant that the rural farm immigrant student took more than one year to complete a grade in his/her new age-graded school.  There was no concept of “retardation” in one-room schoolhouses because students regularly took time off from school to perform farm work returning once crops were planted or harvested to complete their studies and this was much more common for young rural male students.  Students simply returned to their respective in one-room schoolhouses and resumed their studies at the point at which they left.  The individual completion model of schooling employed in one-room schoolhouses was neither limited to nor a function of aged-based time slots.  The concept of “mental retardation” or “retardation,” therefore, is a tragic product of one of the earliest school reform movements.  That is, the nationwide adaptation of age-graded schools which could be perceived perhaps as a form of the “conscious organization of students into academically and racially heterogeneous classrooms” (Rubin, 2003, p. 540). 

Why do American students especially those in middle school and high school seem to lag behind those of other nations?  Mathematics provides a possible insight.  Perhaps it is because American students may not learn as much mathematics as do their international counterparts.  Compared to other nations where mathematics proficiency is rather high such asJapanandGermany, American students do not seem to study the same amount of geometry, algebra, and trigonometry.  Because the students of other nations attend more higher level math classes earlier in their school life, they are able also to study more and achieve greater proficiency in science courses especially physics including Advanced Placement physics.  When these factors are combined with the fact that most American school districts have either detracked or have maintained tracking, the mathematics education gap could widen. 

I will now address a rather thought provoking question:  “Is there another way to provide classroom instruction rather than through tracking, detracking, or a lowest common denominator (LCD) approach?”  Although the answer is yes, economic constraints on school facilities and staffing levels have created the dichotomous choice between tracking and detracking.  That is, the limitations of school facilities especially classroom space dictate the choice of either teaching students grouped according to ability or grouped within the same number of classrooms per school and taught in an LCD approach.  I argue that students suffer adverse educational consequences under either scenario. 

The “other way” is to cut the Gordian knot which bottleneck’s any alternative approach.  That is, to find a way in which to fund our schools without treating school funding as a zero-sum game in which, for example, if urban districts gain financial aid then their gain is or is perceived to be offset by an equal loss on the part of rural or suburban districts.  This lack of Pareto efficiency creates perpetual conflict among different districts, regions, and student populations which ultimately levels down the quality of education for all students but particularly for those that are at-risk and disadvantaged.  

My proposal to cut the Gordian knot of educational finance so as to provide the proper number and smaller sized classrooms necessary for increasing student achievement is to require the state and federal governments to fully fund all education mandates in advance of their implementation at the school level.  For example, in terms of special education and 504 Plan students, the state and federal governments would each pay their full share of their special education mandates such that no residual cost of special education is paid by any local school district.  Moreover, the state and federal governments would pay the fully allocated student cost and these monies would fully fund the student wherever he/she attended school regardless of geography. 

State issued budget caps, such asNew Jersey’s 2% cap, force local school districts to fund the unfunded portion of mandates which means that the typical district is regularly forced to cut non-mandate protected programs and services (i.e., regular education) to make up the difference.  This leads to conflicts among special and regular education parents primarily at the local level not to mention NCLB financial and operational penalties.  My proposal, however, would solve this problem.  Fully funding of all mandates would include but not be limited to those students who qualify for special education, free or reduced price lunches (i.e., poverty-level and economically challenged), LEP and ELL, and those from racial and ethnic minorities who have unique academic challenges.  This would lead to a massive increase of funding to urban and low income districts but without necessarily penalizing suburban and rural districts. 

ThePatersonpublic schools serve as an excellent example.  Paterson’s student enrollment is approximately 33,000, of which two-thirds qualify for special education while the other students generally qualify for free or reduced price lunches (i.e., poverty-level and economically challenged), LEP and ELL, and those from racial and ethnic minorities who have unique academic challenges.  Although I have not performed a weighted student cost analysis, I estimate thatPaterson might qualify for almost 100% state and federal funding of all of its students’ fully loaded costs if their state and federal aid was based on my model.   

In terms of property taxes,New Jerseyshould eliminate county government which is duplicative and a source of corruption asConnecticutdid in 1960.  Eliminating this unnecessary layer of county government would not only save New Jersey over $6.3 billion annually in property taxes so as to provide more funds for our schools and alleviate the property tax burden so that districts would be much more likely to vote to increase school budgets but also eliminate the rationale for any state imposed budget caps (i.e., 2% cap) as well as other restrictions. 

The incremental funds made available through the full funding of all state and federal education mandates plus the elimination of county government should be readily applied to designing and retrofitting our schools with the flexible classroom capacity necessary to successfully approximate the instruction of very small groups of students in smaller class sizes.  This would provide the foundation for “another way” that is based on neither tracking nor detracking!  Rubin (2003, p. 568) echoes the essence of my model by stating, “Larger changes in school structure can address this issue as well, such as creating smaller schools-within schools that would explicitly foster community among diverse students.”  

References 

Mehan, H. (2000). Beneath the skin and between the ears:  A case study in the politics of representation. In B. Levinson et al. (Eds,), Schooling the symbolic animal:  Social and cultural dimensions of education (259-279).Lanham,MD:  Rowman & Littlefield, Inc. 

Rubin, B. C. (2003). Unpacking detracking:  When progressive pedagogy meets students’ social worlds. American Educational Research Journal 40(2):  539-573. 

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice:  Learning, meaning and identity.Cambridge:  CambridgeUniversity Press.