Six decades ago, in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court declared that education “must be available to all on equal terms.” Although this principle is virtually noncontroversial today, implementation of educational equity is still an active debate. Policy scholar Christopher Jencks has observed that educational equity persists as a contentious issue because “we can all define it in different ways without realizing how profound our differences really are.”
To understand how law and policy address educational equity issues in a particular context like Pennsylvania, one must understand the underlying tensions between competing definitions of educational equity. Penn State’s Mindy Kornhaber, Kelly Griffith, and Alison Tyler have developed a framework for exploring this tension in a recent article in Education Policy Analysis Archives. The framework identifies three competing conceptions of educational equity:
- The equal conception, which strives for equal treatment of all learners.
- The equalizing conception, which strives to leverage educational resources to produce more equal educational outcomes.
- The expansive conception, which strives for more equal educational outcomes through use of resources within and beyond the education system.
Pennsylvania’s public education system contains strands of all three conceptions, but does not fully embody any one conception.
Although Pennsylvania courts have applied the equal conception to overt racial discrimination in education since Brown, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to apply the equal conception to school financing. Accordingly, wealthier school districts raise and spend more money per student than poorer school districts. Education Week places Pennsylvania 34th out of 49 states in school finance equity because of these spending inequalities.
Pennsylvania’s school finance system also features elements of the equalizing conception. For example, in addition to local tax revenue, school districts receive funding from the state of Pennsylvania. Needier districts receive relatively larger shares of state funding based on factors like poverty, ruralness, and concentration of English language learners. Critics, however, have questioned the accuracy, fairness, and transparency of Pennsylvania’s school finance policy, and Governor Tom Corbett recently characterized the current funding system as unfair.
Pennsylvania law also contains strands of the expansive conception. Some commentators worry that unrestrained pursuit of the expansive conception may lead to absurd outcomes that penalize advantaged students. William Koski and Rob Reich, for instance, invoke Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron,” in which talented ballerinas are encumbered with bags of birdshot to prevent them from being “unfairly” graceful. Lawmakers have embraced the expansive conception, however, when such policies are economically advantageous, such as early childhood education programs. One example is Pennsylvania’s Early Intervention Services System Act (“EISSA”), which provides social services to children with disabilities before they even enter the K-12 system. The General Assembly enacted EISSA because these services minimize the need for special education services and are most cost-effective when initiated in early childhood.
Emerging educational equity issues will continue to be shaped by the tension between these competing conceptions. Future contributions to The Forum will address issues where this tension arises in Pennsylvania, such as desegregation, school discipline, demographic shifts, and the school-to-prison pipeline.
Posted Feb. 9, 2014