School Finance Equity through Accountability? Exploring the Role of Federal Oversight of School Districts under the Every Student Succeeds Act

ABSTRACT Federal school finance policy over the past 30 years has focused on resource allocation within school districts. Regulations require equal staffing across schools, particularly Title I schools, which are designated based on the percent of low-income students enrolled. The requirement to equalize staffing levels creates a loophole where, even with equal staffing levels, differences in staff experience and salary levels across schools lead to differences in actual spending across schools. In response, recent regulatory reforms have shifted from an emphasis on equal staffing to an emphasis on equal spending. Under the federal comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) system, states are required to periodically review within-district spending gaps for any district with a significant number of identified schools. We analyze spending gaps within districts in California and assess the extent to which the CSI system targets districts with inequitable spending patterns. We find that racial and income-based spending gaps across-schools are not substantially different for districts with CSI schools and districts with no CSI schools. Importantly, many districts with large spending gaps are not included in the policy and thus do not face federal regulations to measure and address resource disparities across schools. We discuss implications for school finance research and policy moving forward, particularly as schools respond to the global pandemic and reopening process.