KU professor talks race and funding
Published Feb. 13, 2007
Public school districts in the state of Missouri are suing the state in response to Missouri's handling of public education funding.
The legislature recently changed the overall approach to funding Missouri's elementary and secondary public schools to a system-based one that is more closely focused on allocating funds on the basis of the individual need of a given school.
One of the needs rarely discussed in school funding, according to a professor with experience in the field, is race-based funding.
Bruce Baker, a professor at the University of Kansas, connected the two types of funding in the case of Missouri public schools Feb. 5 in Jefferson City.
Baker, who has done academic research on funding strategies and school financing, was called to testify for the districts on behalf of the Missouri school districts involved.
"It's interesting in school funding formulas that they try to allocate money out of the basis of need and generally avoid the race card," Baker said. "There is not a school funding formula out there that targets additional money on the basis of race."
Baker used several school districts in the Kansas City metropolitan area as examples of the added expenditures in hiring teachers.
"If you even wanted to get teachers of similar quantity to work in the Kansas City, Missouri or Center School Districts as compared to districts with more desirable working characteristics, you have to pay a premium," Baker said.
More desirable working conditions include the student composition of the classroom in Baker's research.
"To get equal quality, it's going to cost you more," Baker said.
Baker said teachers do respond to the racial composition of schools in hiring trends. Teachers with some level of job mobility tend to avoid schools with a large black population, Baker said.
Aside from the connection between race, achievement gaps and the price of education, there is also a connection between poverty levels and the cost of education.
"The empirical reality is that there are racial differences in performance above and beyond poverty differences," Baker said. "The implication is that the state would have to target money partially on the basis of racial composition."
Although Baker's research and the case presented connects to the elementary and secondary education in Missouri's public schools, the effect at colleges and universities is evident.
Jeffrey Williams, director of MU Access and Urban Outreach, said the claim that it costs more to educate students of color is viable when applied to the university setting.
"If we look at the impact of achievement disparities, it often means that more services are required," Williams said. "I think one way it translates to us is that universities have some responsibility for these kinds of concerns, and so before we can even talk about admissions and these kinds of things, we have to work with K-12 and see that we're all concerned with the same kinds of issues."
The proxy cost to educate the average full time enrolled UM system student is $26,409, as of last year, said Nikki Krawitz, UM system vice president for finance and administration.
"We don't have any data that would support that at the university level," Krawitz said in response to research similar to Baker's in regards of higher education. "Everyone we accept is able to get all of the help that they need to the extent that they need that help."
Institutional programs to help students of color are available on campus, including Academic Retention Services, in connection with the Student Success Center.
But Williams said Academic Retention Services is not a remediation program.
"We don't do remediation at the University of Missouri," Williams said. "Students would more likely go to other institutions or community colleges."
Williams said the mission of Academic Retention Services is to foster the success of a certain population of students by addressing their specific needs at the university.