Giving Compass' Take:

• Martin Levine explains that the primary sources for public education funding in the United States - property taxes and private philanthropy - are inherently inequitable using the example of California’s San Luis Coastal Unified School District.

• How can funders work to change this system to create equitable funding for public education? What changes would make the biggest impact? 

• Learn about America's racial school funding gap. 

When the philanthropic sector can fill a role districts like this carve out, students do benefit. Programs are saved, even expanded. Equipment is kept up to date. Special student needs can be addressed. But is this how we want to fund public education?

Now, look at the oft-cited example of Finland, which does not allow private money into the public school system. It has the lowest differential between the best and worst students and the highest overall ranking for education. There is no market competition encouraged from school to school. There is no standardized testing, charter schools, or vouchers. There are no philanthropists eager to remake the schools in a particular preferred image.

Ollie Luukainin, the president of Finland’s powerful teachers’ union, says, “Equality is the most important word in education.” Yet Finland spends 30 percent less than the United States on education. This Smithsonian article takes on all of the “buts” that people have in countering the arguments about why such stuff wouldn’t work here.

Funding public education based on local conditions like property values or household wealth perpetuates existing privilege. Taking on difficult issues like these on a state or federal basis is a better approach, but one that’s much more difficult politically. NPQ has previously noted that “Most of the philanthropy directed at public schools is local, meaning that wealthy school districts enjoy a philanthropic advantage and few people are paying attention to fairness and balance.” On the other hand, when billionaire-backed philanthropy moves into districts that are more mixed- or low-income, the price can be parents’ democratic voice. With all of the flap about education in this country, children are still being treated to a basic formula that maintains and prolongs unequal treatment.

Read the full article about inequities in public education funding by Martin Levine at Nonprofit Quarterly.