Fair and Just School Resources
In the United States public schools are funded through a mix of local, state and federal funding. For the most part, schools serving students of color and students from low-income communities have less funding per student than schools in wealthier neighborhoods. These resource disparities perpetuate opportunity gaps in schools and in our broader society. No child’s educational opportunities should be limited because of their zip code. The Schott Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that every student has access to fair and just school resources.
The Latest on Fair & Just School Resources
Quality public education for all is a centerpiece of the American promise and an aspiration to which generations have worked to fulfill. During Reconstruction in the 1860s and 1870s, one of the very first things Black policymakers in the South did once elected was to institute universal, compulsory public education for all children, regardless of race or wealth. The subsequent campaigns of terror that undid much of Reconstruction's achievements and inaugurated Jim Crow across the South segregated those schools, creating two separate and unequal systems of education.
Do your schools provide enough resources to students in your community? Do you ever wonder why some schools have more resources than others? How does funding in your school district work?
According to a 2015 bipartisan Foundation Budget Review Commission Report, Massachusetts schools are underfunded by $1 billion and $2 billion! So what is being done to solve this education crisis?
Schott Foundation President & CEO Dr. John H. Jackson talks about the importance of love and happiness as we work give students the opportunities they need.
The public school is the cornerstone of community empowerment and advancement in American society. However, there are some who advocate for handing these public institutions and dollars over to private interests — despite overwhelming data showing such strategies simply don't live up to their promises and run counter to core educational values of equity and opportunity.
In the midst of a continuous push for privatization from Washington, DC and many state capitals, it's more important than ever to ask, "When it comes to supporting public schools, does my state make the grade?"
One of the many insightful picket signs from the successful 2012 Chicago teachers' strike read, "together we bargain: alone we beg." That important lesson doesn't apply only to teachers, but to everyone who wants to improve their public schools.
In that spirit, several cities have developed community and labor partnerships that are working on collective community bargaining platforms for local change that goes beyond teacher salary and school day hours. These alliances translate into community power.
Early education funding, community schools, changing zero tolerance policies, and even banking foreclosure reform are among the issues community and labor groups are uniting around and scoring big wins. Across the country, parents, students and educators are discovering the power they have when they build a common vision and work together to make it a reality.
We discussed effective collaborations and strategies used by teachers unions and education justice groups led by parents, students and community members to achieve substantive outcomes for students and communities in Chicago. We also explored the broader implications for community and labor partnerships to address education reform, as well as the racial and economic justice issues that impact a student’s opportunity to learn.
In collaboration with our grantee Southern Echo, the Schott Foundation has created an infographic sketching out some key opportunities in ESSA to move the cause of education justice further and to help ensure that schools and districts are held accountable to a much better-rounded and more holistic evaluation of their performance than before.
The overuse of suspensions in Massachusetts schools is harming educational opportunities for all students, but with the burden impacting black students and students with disabilities more than other groups, according to a study released by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies and supported by the Schott Foundation. The study is the first ever to quantify the school-level days of missed instruction due to discipline, reporting both the black/white gap and the impact on students with disabilities. The report advocates that the state adopt "days of lost instruction" as an accountability measure.