NJ Education Report

Matt Miller, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, examines the school funding inequities between wealthy suburban districts and neighboring inner cities:

Lost in the clash between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis is an injustice whose remedy would do more to improve schools in the Windy City than anything to which the two sides just agreed.

I’m talking about the uniquely American local system of school finance — one that dooms millions of poor children to the least-qualified teachers and most run-down facilities in the country. No other wealthy nation tolerates the funding disparities between rich and poor districts that the U.S. does. Even conservatives in other countries agree that poor kids need greater investment to overcome disadvantage. Yet calling attention to this scandal is taboo in American politics because it hides behind the mask of “local control.”