5A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2016
Schools: Each state has its
own unique funding formula
Continued from Page 1A
Last year, Stevenson spent
close to $18,800 per student.
Waukegan’s
expenditure?
About $12,600.
And the gap has only been
getting wider — here in the sub-
urbs north of Chicago, and in
many places across the nation.
In the years following the 2008
inancial crisis, school districts
serving poor communities gen-
erally have been hit harder than
more afluent districts, accord-
ing to an Associated Press anal-
ysis of local, state and federal
education spending.
A rich, poor divide
The result has been a wors-
ening of America’s rich schools,
poor schools divide — and its
racial divide, because many
poor districts are also heav-
ily minority. It also perpetuates
the perception that the system
is rigged in favor of the haves,
at the expense of the have-nots
— a major driver of America’s
angst in this election year.
The AP found that aid to
local districts from the federal
government surged after the
economic downturn, as part of
the stimulus, but then receded.
Schools were left to rely more
on state funding that has not
bounced back to pre-recession
levels. And poorer districts that
cannot draw on healthy prop-
erty tax bases have been left in
the lurch.
The effects vary widely
across the 50 states. Each has its
own unique funding formula.
For example, per-pupil
spending in poorer Missouri
districts fell behind richer dis-
tricts in 2013 — the irst time in
a well over decade.
Most rich districts have
seen a steady increase in rev-
enue while poorer districts —
such as Louisiana RII, a pre-
dominantly white district 80
miles northwest of St. Louis
— have seen cuts since 2010.
That rural district has started
waiting longer to replace text-
books, and it will likely aban-
don initiatives to distribute new
computers and to bring wireless
internet into classrooms. Todd
Smith, the superintendent, said
the district will likely seek a tax
increase or a bond sale because
there isn’t enough money for
basic maintenance.
“We ind ourselves more
and more dipping into our
reserves,” Smith said.
In Connecticut’s largest city,
Bridgeport, schools have strug-
gled with cuts in state and fed-
eral grants, Superintendent
Frances Rabinowitz said. And
the gap widens between her
district and neighboring, aflu-
ent Fairield County towns with
smaller class sizes and students
with far fewer needs.
The result? No aides for kin-
dergarten classrooms, or guid-
ance counselors for elementary
‘We find ourselves
more and more dipping
into our reserves.’
Todd Smith
superintendent of a rural school district
80 miles northwest of St. Louis, Mo.
schools, or buses for students
at some high schools (they get
city bus passes, instead).
“I feel like I am cutting the
lifeblood of the system,” said
Rabinowitz, whose schools are
more than 80 percent black or
Hispanic. “We’re not talking
nice things. We’re talking what
I would consider essentials
in trying to move the district
forward.”
age percentage of English lan-
guage learners and children in
poverty. The district struggled
to meet the needs of its students
even before the foreclosure
crisis left blocks dotted with
empty homes and businesses.
Teachers buy fans with their
own money to ight the heat at
schools like the district’s Little
Fort Elementary.
Impact can be long-
lasting
Over the past ive years,
the district lost $43 million in
state aid because Illinois cut
education funding, accord-
ing to Gwendolyn Polk, asso-
ciate superintendent of busi-
ness and inancial services. The
proposed budget for the com-
ing year is $218 million, with
a projected deicit of $7.4 mil-
lion. The district did its best to
keep the cuts from affecting the
classroom, which meant put-
ting off regular maintenance
and cobbling together funds to
deal with emergencies.
When a water pipe began
leaking in a classroom, the dis-
trict was required to remove
asbestos around the aged pipes
as part of the repairs. Workers
ripped open a 6-foot hole, then
covered it with a piece of ply-
wood and painted over it.
About 70 percent of stu-
dents graduate from Waukegan
High School in four years, and
less than half go on to attend a
two-year or four-year college.
“Just because our students
are low income here within this
district, it doesn’t mean they
shouldn’t have the same oppor-
tunities kids in surrounding
districts have,” said Michelle
Lenczuk, a teacher at Little Fort.
“They have the same knowl-
edge. They have the same capa-
bility to learn. They have the
drive. They want to do that.”
Stevenson District 125, in
contrast, educates students in an
area northwest of Chicago that’s
home to upper-class profession-
als and corporate headquar-
ters, the kind of districts parents
move into in hopes of giving
their children a leg up. Adlai Ste-
State cuts
The impact can be long-last-
ing, researchers say. A study
for the nonproit and nonpar-
tisan National Bureau of Eco-
nomic Research tracked stu-
dents enrolled in districts where
there was a prolonged increase
in school funding.
Students educated in lush
times inished more years of
school, were less likely to live
in poverty as adults, and made
about 7.25 percent more in
wages.
“The body of evidence is
pretty clear that when school
districts get more money, good
things tend to happen and when
they’re forced to cut spend-
ing, bad things tend to hap-
pen,” said Kirabo Jackson, one
of the report’s authors and an
associate professor of human
development and social policy
at Northwestern University’s
School of Education and Social
Policy.
The widening funding gap
that favors richer schools in Illi-
nois is an extreme example.
For schools in the poorest
25 percent of Illinois districts,
as measured by child poverty
rates, per-pupil funding stalled
at around $13,500 in 2014, the
most recent year for which full
data are available. Meanwhile,
per-pupil funding climbed to
over $15,000 in the wealthiest
25 percent.
Alejandra Ocampo, senior
class president at Waukegan
High School, said the dispari-
ties are plain to see.
When her athletic teams
would travel to other schools
for competitions, the afluence
was clear from the minute they
pulled up, Ocampo says. And
sometimes when those oppos-
ing teams would show up to
Waukegan, they would hear
the chatter: “This is it?” or
“Why is their locker room like
a dungeon?”
Waukegan District 60’s
enrollment of roughly 17,000 is
nearly 80 percent Hispanic and
15 percent black students, and
includes a higher-than-aver-
ll
Ca ime
yt
n
A
venson High School resembles a
small college, with a manicured
campus and more than 120 stu-
dent clubs. Wide, carpeted hall-
ways house art galleries for dis-
playing student work. Outside a
suite of teacher ofices, a mes-
sage on a lat-screen TV con-
gratulates the water polo team
on its state championship.
Two-thirds of the students
are white and about 22 percent
are Asian, with black and His-
panic students making up less
than 10 percent of the enroll-
ment. Between 97 and 98 per-
cent of students will go on to
college, most of them to four-
year schools.
Stevenson has felt minimal
impact from state budget cuts,
spokesman Jim Conrey said.
The district hasn’t had to go to
referendum to get more prop-
erty tax revenue since 2002,
when a measure passed with 70
percent support.
“We’re certainly well aware
of what other schools are suf-
fering through right now and
we sympathize with them,”
Conrey said. “We’re very lucky
in that we’re not having to face
a lot of the issues that they are.”
Matthew Cabrera, a 17-year-
old who just inished his junior
year at Stevenson, takes a range
of Advanced Placement classes
and plays violin in the school
orchestra. His family moved
to the area from the South Side
of Chicago when Cabrera was
in second grade, and he knows
how different Stevenson is
from the school he would have
attended if they’d stayed.
“I don’t think I would have
been able to grow as a person
as much if I didn’t go to Steven-
son,” Cabrera says.
Waukegan’s Alejandra Oca-
mpo plans to study education
and Spanish in college this
fall. She’s proud of where she
comes from, but she says some
more money would be helpful
in ways that go beyond better
facilities or more teachers.
“I feel like funding is more
of a motivational gift than an
actual physical gift,” she said.
“It’s how it makes you feel
about yourself.”
Fenn reported from New
York. Associated Press writ-
ers Michael Melia in Hartford,
Connecticut, Carolyn Thomp-
son in Buffalo, New York, and
Carrie Antlinger in Lincoln-
shire, Illinois, also contributed
to this report.
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
Pneumonia diagnosis fuels
questions about Clinton’s health
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — For weeks, Hillary Clinton dis-
missed questions about her health as little more than a con-
spiracy theory, part of a “wacky strategy” cooked up by rival
Donald Trump as he embraced an “alternative reality.”
Those concerns are now unavoidable, made real by Clin-
ton’s abrupt departure Sunday from a 9/11 anniversary cere-
mony and a video showing the Democratic nominee stagger-
ing and eventually slumping forward before being held up by
three people as she was helped into a van.
The damage was compounded by the nearly eight hours of
silence from Clinton and her team about the health scare, as
well as the Sunday evening disclosure she had been diagnosed
on Friday with pneumonia.
Clinton’s doctor said the 68-year-old former secretary of
state “became overheated and dehydrated” at the 9/11 cere-
mony at ground zero. After an exam at her home in suburban
New York, said Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, Clinton “is now rehy-
drated and recovering nicely.”
But less than two months from Election Day, it was a prob-
lematic visual for Clinton as she tries to project the strength
and vigor needed for one of the world’s most demanding jobs.
Late Sunday night, she called off plans to travel to California
for two days of fundraising, campaign events and an appear-
ance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show.
Russia-US-brokered Syria
cease-ire to start at sunset
BEIRUT — A cease-ire brokered by the United States
and Russia is set to begin at sunset on Monday in Syria amid
mixed messages of commitment from various rebel fac-
tions but with verbal backing by President Bashar Assad’s
government.
In a stark message to opponents, Assad made a rare pub-
lic appearance Monday by attending prayers for the Muslim
holiday of Eid al-Adha at a mosque in the Damascus suburb
of Daraya.
The suburb, previously held by the rebels, surrendered last
month and reverted to Damascus’ control after four years of
government siege.
The cease-ire deal, hammered out between U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
in Geneva on Saturday, allows the Syrian government to con-
tinue to strike at the Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked mil-
itants with the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham group, earlier known as the
Nusra Front, until the U.S. and Russia take over the task in one
week’s time.
Rebel factions have expressed deep reservations about the
deal.
Obama, Hill leaders meet ahead
of federal funding deadline
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is meeting
with the top four leaders of Congress ahead of a month’s-
end deadline to fund the government or face a shutdown,
and with money all but gone to address the worsening Zika
crisis.
The White House meeting Monday afternoon is likely to
focus on an emerging legislative compromise to address both
issues. Long-sought provisions to provide money to deal with
Zika look likely to be added to a must-pass spending bill to
fund the government through Dec. 9.
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