Equalizing Educational Opportunity.

Overview & Synopsis

Education directly determines life, liberty, and happiness for that segment of the population which can afford better educational facilities. For economically and socially disadvantaged people, education only perpetuates inequality. Financial inequality results in some school districts spending more money per student than other school districts. There is a high positive correlation between a public school student's socioeconomic status and the amount of public money spent on his/her education. What are needed are new forms of school financing where local financing of education is replaced by state, and possibly federal, disbursement of public education funds. However, the essential objective is not to equalize expenditures but to equalize opportunity in the form of compensatory education programs for the disadvantaged, health care for pregnant women, and post-natal instruction in homemaking and baby care. (Author/SB)