Although school financing may be a dry topic, recent coverage in the Rockford Register Star convincingly points out how we allocate funding to schools has immeasurable impact on students and teachers alike.
Corina Curry’s reporting skillfully addresses the often amplified discussion of politics, money, and education. As Curry reminds us, Title I was a key component of President Johnson’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the ESEA. The law has been reauthorized multiple times, most recently under the title “No Child Left Behind.”
Congress recently completed a series of debates about the law’s next incarnation. Prospects appear good, with a particularly notable bipartisan compromise regarding increased preschool funding.
In our History of Education classes at Rockford University, we generally interpret the ESEA as a watershed moment in the struggle for equitable education. The ESEA was an attempt to inject federal funds into a two-tiered system, generally among majority white and non-white majority schools.
However, the Register Star suggests the ESEA’s legacy is more complicated. Instead of allocating funds directly to schools, Illinois law moves some funds to another underfunded area – teacher pay and pension.
Unfortunately, the Register Star’s hyperbolic language about “stealing from poor children” only encourages simplistic either/or thinking regarding a very complicated issue.
A problem of this magnitude requires thoughtful discourse, not villainizing. We need not adequately fund our students at the expense of our teachers, nor our teachers at the expense of our students.
I’m Jake Hardesty, and that’s my perspective
