Compounded Inequities: Tracking School Finance Equity for Districts Serving Low-Income Emergent Bilingual Students

Abstract

School districts face different costs to produce the same level of educational opportunity because of differences in student populations, geographic variation in average wages, and district size. However, in many states, the school finance system fails to take these factors into account when distributing funds to school districts. Most prior analyses of state school finance systems focus on the relationship between district funding and the percent of low-income students in that district. Other studies explore funding for emergent bilinguals, who are typically classified as English language learners (ELLs) in state data systems. We present the first longitudinal descriptive evidence of the extent to which state school finance systems compound inequities for districts serving high concentrations of both low-income students and ELLs. We assess the extent to which high-ELL high-poverty districts are underfunded relative to otherwise similar districts in the same state and how these trends have changed leading up to and following the recession-era spending cuts. We find that prior to the recession, high-ELL districts received greater funding levels than otherwise similar low-ELL districts in the same state. However, recessionary spending cuts disproportionately impacted funding for ELLs. The remaining resource advantages for high-ELL districts are concentrated in low-poverty districts. We discuss implications for bilingual education and school finance policy.