Education redlining is alive and well in schools across the country, according to a report from the Center for American Progress. "Unequal Education: Federal Loophole Enables Lower Spending on Students of Color" reveals a direct and disturbing relationship between the racial composition of schools and how much those schools spend to educate their students: As Black student enrollment rises, instructional expenditures decline. 

We've covered education redlining in the past on the OTL blog. Whereas "redlining" once referred to the unethical, often illegal, banking practice of denying certain communities (read: communities of color) access to resources and services, The Schott Foundation for Public Education released a report in April detailing "education redlining," in which thousands of NYC's students of color were being systematically denied educational opportunities {such as access to high-quality teachers or testing for gifted and talented programs) as a result of bad city education policies. 

According to the CAP report, that phenomenon is being repeated in classrooms across the country. The "comparability loophole" in Title I funding allows school districts to exclude teacher salary differentials when calculating per-student expenditures. As a result, districts may think they're providing equal educational funding for all schools when in reality they're allowing inexperienced, lower-paid teachers to be concentrated in high-needs schools. 

The differences is what schools are spending on their students is stark and deeply upsetting:

"Across the country schools spent $334 more on every white student than on every nonwhite student. Mostly white schools (90 percent or more white) spent $733 more per student than mostly nonwhite schools (90 percent or more nonwhite). The United States spends $293 less per year on students in mostly nonwhite schools than on students in all other schools. That’s 7 percent of the median per-pupil spending."

The difference in total school funding each year ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. As CAP points out, "Those extra dollars would pay the salaries of additional classroom teachers or buy any number of valuable educational inputs such as computers, guidance counselors, or teaching coaches."

Michael Holzman, Senior Research Consultant for the Schott Foundation and author of "A Rotting Apple: Education Redlining In New York City," offers this helpful visual of CAP's findings alongside the percentage of of Black students scoring at or above proficient on the NAEP Grade 8 Reading test: 

As the percentage of Black students rises, the per student expenditure (blue line) decreases, as does the percentage of Black students scoring at or above Proficient on the NAEP Grade 8 Reading test.

We can't possibly hope to close the achievement gap until we've also closed the opportunity gap. Ending state and federal policies that lead to education redlining, such as the comparability loophole, will help ensure that all students have access to a fair and equitable opportunity to learn and the resources they need to reach their fullest potential.

You can download the full report from Center for American Progress here. 

To learn more about education redlining, including how to identify it in your community, click here to watch the OTL Campaign's July webinar on education redlining and download the resources you'll need to advocate on behalf of your local schools!