FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Rockefeller Institute Policy Brief Highlights Need for School-Level Funding Data
Report finds 866 low-performing schools, two-thirds of them in New York City
District-level data may mask funding inequities among schools within districts
Albany, NY — In a new policy brief, researchers at the Rockefeller Institute of Government examine the relationship between school funding and academic achievement in New York State by ranking the state’s more than 4,000 public schools by academic performance, highlighting per pupil spending at the district level, and presenting measures of the schools’ fiscal capacity and wealth and poverty levels.
The report found:
- There are 866 schools that are low-performing — i.e., falling into the bottom 20 percent statewide in combined math and ELA proficiency or high school graduation rates.
- These low-performing schools can be found in every borough in New York City and across 48 other counties.
- New York City is home to nearly two-thirds of all low-performing, High Needs schools in the state. More than a third of all the public schools in New York City are low-performing.
- There are significant issues in New York’s upstate cities as well. In Rochester, 48 of the city school district’s 50 total schools are low-performing or 96 percent of the entire city school district. In Syracuse, 27 of 30 schools are low-performing — or 90 percent of the entire district. Twelve out of the 15 schools in the Schenectady City School District are low performing — or 80 percent of the entire district. Twelve out of the 16 schools — 75 percent — are low-performing in the City School District of Albany. Forty-one of Buffalo’s 56 schools — 73 percent — are low-performing.
- On average, low-performing schools all had higher rates of participation — nearly double — in the federal free and reduced-priced lunch program compared to other schools in the state.
- When individual low-performing schools are mapped according to the federal free and reduced-priced lunch (FRPL) participation and overall combined proficiency in ELA and math, there appears to be some relationship of FRPL to academic performance. This needs future study.
Beyond specific findings, the report underscores the need to gather more detailed data at the school level — rather than the district level — to accurately determine a relationship between education spending and academic performance and work toward a more equitable funding formula.
“New York’s current education funding system sends the majority of funding to school districts, which then decide how to distribute it among schools,” said Jim Malatras, president of the Rockefeller Institute and an author of the policy brief. “Our research found that it’s not uncommon for low-performing schools to share a district with high-performing schools. To build a more equitable educational system, we need to figure out how that can happen and make sure resources are sent to those schools that need it the most.”
A new requirement in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, and recent legislative proposals in New York for districts to provide school-level per pupil spending data, take steps in the right direction to allow a more robust analysis of potential funding disparities among schools within a district, and how or whether they correlate with low academic performance.
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About the Rockefeller Institute of Government
The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government is the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. The Institute conducts fiscal and programmatic research on American state and local governments.