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Making the Grade

Report


Press Release


Tools for Advocates


Technical Appendix

Making the Grade 2022 examines the condition of school finance in the states on the cusp of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report highlights the glaring inequities that challenged many districts' ability to effectively respond to the pandemic and calls on state lawmakers to undertake necessary school finance reforms.

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Press Release


Tools for Advocates


Technical Appendix

Making the Grade 2021 documents the persistence of unfair school funding across the country and underscores the urgent need for school finance reform. The report asks: is it time for the federal government to play a more active role in promoting education funding equity, especially for students in the nation’s high-poverty, racially isolated districts and schools?

Report


Press Release

A new study by Education Law Center (ELC) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) examines public school funding in eight Southern states based on criteria in ELC’s national Making the Grade report. The report finds that Southern states’ failure to prioritize public education has an outsized impact on students of color and students living in or near poverty,


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Press Release


Tools for Advocates


Technical Appendix

Making the Grade 2020 evaluates the 50 states and the District of Columbia on three measures of fair school funding: funding level, funding distribution and funding effort. The report documents the alarming condition of school funding in most states, leaving school districts, especially those segregated by poverty, ill-equipped to weather the economic, social and educational upheaval schools are currently experiencing from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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Press Release


Tools for Advocates

$600 Billion Lost lays bare public education's "lost decade" from 2008 to 2018 when states failed to reinvest in public schools as they recovered from the Great Recession. If PK-12 funding had kept pace with states’ economic growth, public schools would have had well over half a trillion dollars more in state and local revenue to invest in teachers, support staff and other resources essential to give students, especially the most vulnerable, a meaningful opportunity for success. 

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Press Release


Technical Appendix

Making the Grade 2019 evaluates the 50 states and the District of Columbia on three measures of fair school funding: funding level, funding distribution and funding effort. It provides compelling evidence that K-12 public school funding continues to be deeply unfair in many states and a major factor contributing to disparities in education resources, opportunities and outcomes for the 50 million public school children across the United States.

ELC’s previously published reports, Is School Funding Fair?: A National Report Card (Eds. 1-7), can be found on the Publications page.