Achieving Resource Equity Within a Single School District

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Abstract
This article examines the failure of school districts to distribute nonmoney resources—controlled primarily by the board of education—equally among students in affluent neighborhoods versus low-income areas. It is largely an urban phenomenon, although some county-wide and large suburban school systems display similar patterns. Such practices represent a failure to achieve the vision of equity championed in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The main aspects of the opportunity gap addressed in this article are teacher assignment, staff-based budgeting, formal equality over equity, general education funds, parental involvement, curriculum, and building maintenance costs. These elements are widely accepted as important to learning outcomes. Inadvertent disparities in resource allocation, therefore, can foster a growing opportunity gap between well-off and impoverished students. The findings of Necochea and Cline highlight the negative effects on students of unequal resource allocation. Potential legal pathways in the form of Federal and State laws are suggested to combat the intradistrict educational inequity. The article concludes with policy solutions that school districts across the country have implemented to mitigate the harmful effects of unequal resource allocation and their straightforward attempts to erase the opportunity gap among students from different neighborhoods.

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