Are school districts increasing racing against each other? Not a race to be the best or most efficient, but simply a struggle to attract and keep as many pupils as possible. In the 1990s, Michigan, like many other states, shifted to funding schools mostly through a per-pupil formula determined by the state. Michigan schools previously were funded largely by local property taxes supplemented by state per-pupil contributions, but tax-reform measures have capped funding from property taxes and made Michigan’s public districts reliant on state per-pupil funds. At the same time Michigan, like many other states, has implemented a “schools of choice” policy that permits school districts to accept pupils who reside in other district zones.
Over the ten-year period after Michigan’s major school-funding reform in 1994, many urban and suburban districts found themselves competing for per-pupil state funding. Suburban districts need extra students in order to make up budgetary shortfalls and protect instructional programs that are essential in today’s political climate of school accountability. Several districts in this study built new or substantially renovated state-of-the-art high schools, possibly illustrating a “space race” between the districts to build bigger, better, newer capital assets that attract pupils and residential development. The central-city district, surrounded by growing suburbs with higher-value taxable property, is at a disadvantage in this competition.
I have been involved in a study of one specific metropolitan area of Michigan. Our analysis of school district data in one urban area suggests that an escalation in the amount of money spent on building new high schools has coincided with the emergence of schools of choice competition in the region. Seven of the nine districts surrounding the urban district have substantially renovated or built new high schools in the ten years. Only two districts (both substantially rural) did not join the fray during this period. Furthermore, of the five districts that share long borders with the urban district, four have put significant investments into capital assets since 1999.
Three years ago I moved to Massachusetts. I found a similar trend. Specifically, suburban districts were competing for student in neighboring urban centers. While we have witnessed this chronic issue at the elementary level with the proliferation of charter schools, this specific issue of suburban schools building new facilities to draw students from urban centers seems disturbing and acute.
In both the Massachusetts and Michigan context money is being spent on public advertisements (radio, newspapers, and even billboards) to attract students. Some schools even provide regionalized transportation from the urban center. In the 1970s such movement was mandated by state legislation to de-segregate schools. Is this new phenomenon a de facto de-segregation policy? And, if so, is it working? Are we tracking the demographic and achievement variables of students leaving the urban centers? Are the new economic forces (e.g. competition) and policies (e.g. educational funding follows the student) dictating that districts do whatever is necessary to attract new students? And, as students leave the urban centers are highly qualified teachers close behind?
In the end, the policy levers and economic forces have possibly inverted suburban districts’ thinking about urban students. The student populations that suburban districts once sought to keep out may now be sought after.
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