Disparities Blamed on Racial Bias

From 'Rethinking Schools'

Wisconsin school funding policies tolerate a huge funding gap between urban schools with large numbers of minority students and predominantly white suburban schools, according to a report released Monday (January 15, 2000) by the Milwaukee-based education reform group Rethinking Schools.

The report says these policies are further widening the school funding gap each year.

Since 1980, as the percentage of African-American students and students of color has steadily risen in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), funding per pupil has plummeted compared to funding in overwhelmingly white suburban districts.

As a result, 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, separate and unequal school systems based on race are being re-established in the Milwaukee area with state approval, the report states.

The report concludes that school finance reform in the Milwaukee area is not only an educational necessity; it is a vital matter of civil rights and racial justice.

According to the report "The Return to Separate and Unequal: Metropolitan Milwaukee School Funding Through a Racial Lens" — Milwaukee accounts for approximately 50% of public school students of color in Wisconsin, and 71% of African-American students in the state.

It found:

• In 1980, when the white and black populations in MPS were roughly equal, Milwaukee was $265 above the state average for shared cost per pupil, and only $127 below the suburban average (almost 5% below the suburbs.)
• By 1998, when MPS was a majority black district with about 80% students of color, Milwaukee was $506 below the state average, and $1,254 below the suburban average (nearly 20% below the suburbs). The gap had increased 400% since 1980.

As the report's Executive Summary notes, "Unfortunately, the spending gulf between Milwaukee and its suburbs is only the latest twist in a long history of separate and unequal education in Milwaukee. The dual school system found unconstitutional in Milwaukee in 1976 differed form today's system primarily in scale. Instead of isolating individual African-American schools within a district, as was the case a quarter century ago, the current system isolates and underfunds an entire school district."

The release of this report closely follows a landmark school ruling in New York on January 10, which declared that the state's deficient school funding system violated federal civil rights laws by causing an adverse and disparate impact on minority students. The New York ruling was the first time a school funding method had been found illegal not just on sate constitutional grounds, but also because the funding policy violated federal civil rights laws. The ruling specifically noted the unequal funding in New York City, where more than 70% of the state's students of color live.

Michael Barndt, coordinator of the Data Center at the Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee and recently retired associate professor of urban affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Joel McNally, a newspaper columnist and television commentator in Milwaukee, researched and wrote the Rethinking Schools report. Commentaries on the report have been written by local and national experts, including Wisconsin State Senator Gwendolynne Moore; Diane Pollard, professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and John Powell of the Institute on Race and Poverty in Minneapolis.

Gwendolynne Moore, Wisconsin state senator representing Milwaukee's 4th Senate district, notes in her commentary on the report, "Wisconsin's current school funding scheme has christened an intrinsically unequal educational system and initiated an educational crisis. The Legislature can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the educational challenges associated with the poverty in MPS, as well as the other economically disfavored districts across the sate. Equal access to educational resources is a basic civil rights issue, and Wisconsin's Legislature must secure this fundamental civil right for the future of our children."

The full report will be on the Rethinking Schools Web site (www.rethinkingschools.org) in PDF format no later than January 19, 2001.

Posted January 15, 2001