The question is not exactly the right one.
The right question is what constitutes a "better" educational environment and what "elements" does that require?
In many states like California, funding per student is actually higher in most poor school districts because funds are collected at the state level and distributed on a per student basis to the various school districts and still the higher income schools do better and private schools on average outperform public schools except with respect to those public-school students in "tracking" programs. By "tracking" I mean, IB, AP, or Honors programs.
I have studied the subject quite extensively and while I understand your "funding" argument, it is one of the least predictive of academic success and if we think we can fix the problem with money we will simply waste more money. Study the chart carefully on the link below:
https://www.belovedccs.org/academics__activities/proven_success___student_academic_performance_data
BelovEd Community Charter School in Jersey City has a student population comprised disproportionately of black students with 75% of children coming from families living below the poverty line and operates on a per student budget substantially below that of the local Jersey City Public schools. Look at the NJSLA results...
Okay, so it is not money. So, what does make a "better" school? Not surprisingly, better students. Where do "better students" come from... not rich or poor families, not black or white families... better students come from homes where the parents get involved in their children's education and value education. And that is what makes solving our educational problem so hard... the problem starts in the home.
If money were the answer, then the community public schools would be outperforming the charter school my brother started in Jersey City. There is one magnet public school in Jersey City that does outperform my brother's charter school, but unlike my brother's school you have to pass a test to get accepted into that public school.
Individual teachers can make a huge impact on an individual child, but on average parents have the greatest impact in helping a child realize his or her full potential.
A study done on students in the Chicago public school system many years ago demonstrated that parental involvement in education was the biggest predicator of student success. A Michigan Public School teachers study found the same result.
If you want to argue equal student funding as being "fairer" or more equitable, there is an argument for that. But arguing it will produce better outcomes is not really supported by the facts. I wish it were that easy.
Here is the real problem and if you talk to public school teachers and they are honest with you, they will tell you, that if they could "expel" 10-20% of their students, they elevate the remaining students' educations to levels that would compete with private schools with respect to an individual student's potential. But are we willing to divert those 10-20% of students in favor of the 80-90% that would benefit?
Private schools do that... I was one of those 10-20% that was asked to leave (I did exceptionally well on tests (high IQ) but was incredibly disruptive (boredom with a touch of ADHD).
There may be a way to reach those 10-20% but the solutions are not within the more institutional learning approaches used in most schools. So where does that leave us on issues like "school choice".
In inner cities with failing school systems that don't have a way to rid themselves of the 10-20% of students that are disrupting learning for the other 80-90%, school choice offers poor parents a chance to send their child to a school that is not disruptive... whether that is a "public" charter school, parochial, or private school. Think about this statistic...
"Data from a 2022 standardized achievement test data analysis reveal that California homeschool students scored at the 78th percentile to 88th percentile in reading, language, math, science, and social studies. This is 28 to 38 percentile points above the national average."
In other words, untrained parents teaching their children at home are dramatically outperforming our public schools with almost no funding help from the state. Not every parent can afford to home school, but my point is we need to ask why public schools cannot compete with home schooling?
In other communities, school choice offers parents a chance to send their child to school that reinforces the values that parents have rather than contradicts them. As long as public schools advocate an ideology rather than sticking to teaching subject matter, school choice offers parents a chance to educate their child in a "safer" place. With my black daughter-in-law, she took my black granddaughter out of a very progressive liberal public school that was ranked in the top 1% of public schools in the state and enrolled her in a Catholic school based on the morality being taught.
In other words, I believe it is essential we be more honest in understanding why so few poor children get the education they need to escape poverty as adults.
I believe in community choice, not universal school choice or no school choice. I trust the citizens of a community can decide what educational options will best serve their children. But funding different school options and equalizing school funding on a per student basis won't solve the failure of our educational system to provide the right learning environment to lift most children growing up in poverty out of poverty based on the statistics... and that is a problem. We need to dig deeper and determine if we can somehow shape the cultural values of inner-city children in a way poor Jews and Chinese did. In one generation, a massive wave of poor Chinese and Jewish immigrants' children were lifted out of poverty by education. What did they do differently? How can we replicate it?
