Study by the Association for Equity and Funding Shows Gap in School Funding, Part 2
Wednesday, October 1st, 2014 -- 11:37 AM
-The Association for Equity and Funding recently released information from a study they commissioned that looked at school funding for districts around the state for the past 10 years.John Gaier, District Administrator for Neillsville and Chair of the Association explained what the results of the study found.
John said, "The Forward Institute did a longitudinal study from 2004 to 2011 to see what the impact is in serving those three special needs groups of kids: the economically disadvantaged, the special education students and the English language learning students."
"The results of the study are that there is a great disparity in the amount of money that schools are getting versus the amount of money they would require to met the high expectations for all students that has been given to us by both the federal and state government."
"That is, really, where the study originated from and what the study results were. So now we have actual data that shows there is a disparity in how funding is being handled for these kids. And it's important because there was a lawsuit in the late 90's that was decided in the year 2000, the Vicent/Voight case, where the supreme court came out and said, any funding system, in order to be equitable, has to take into consideration these three groups of students: the special education students, the economically disadvantaged students, and the English language learning students."
"And that's the reason that the Forward Institute and the Association for Equity and Funding wanted to specifically identify those groups to see if there is a disparity. So that is where that originated and that was the result of the study."
The study looked at data for schools from 2004 to 2011.
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