Equity

School finance equity is a crucial issue in educational policy and has been for the decade. States have strived for equilibrium in funding distribution among districts based on court orders, political forces and public demand. Education finance systems in 43 states have been involved in litigation between 1971 and 1999, and school funding systems in 19 of those states were declared unconstitutional (Minorini & Sugarman, 1999). The judicial decisions have forced states to change state funding formulas, school finance policy, or state education systems in order to improve school finance equity (WanKo, 2006). According to equity trend analysis in the 1990’s showed that new formulas and legislation was making education for all students more equitable. However, there is still much to be done concerning equity, there are still many school districts that are not able to provide reasonable education for their students due to the inadequate funding.

Thinking out loud....making sense of equity. quotes from All Else Equal

All Else Equal-This might not be relevent but it kind of relates to equity. "Policy makers often posit that private schools are more successfully organized around academic achievement objectives and are more successful in emphasizing behavioral goals."Friedman's essay on education first appeared in a collection edited by Rober Solo in 1955 (Friedman, 1955). In it, Friedman made two simple aguments against the public education systems. By assigning pupils to public schools based on neighborhood residency, they system restricted freedom of choice. Families had to change where they lived in order to buy better educcation for their children. Better education not only meant higher-quality traditional schooling, but also different types of schooling-more or less structured, more or less emphasis on one subject or antother, and so forth. Those who could not afford to move or did not wish to move for other reasons, were forced to "buy" education that they did not want. This was also true for families sending their children to private schools to avoid unwanted buplic education, because these families still paid taxes for their neighborhood public school.