
High-quality public school facilities make communities more resilient. New school construction increases test scores, attendance, and enrollment as well as housing prices in zoned neighborhoods.
Yet there’s widespread underinvestment in the construction of new schools and maintenance of existing buildings. More than half of all school districts need to update or replace at least two major systems or features, such as HVAC, in at least half of their school buildings.
School facilities also tend to be in worse condition in low-income school districts. Districts depend on local property taxes, which produce less revenue for school funding in lower-income districts than in wealthier districts. As a result, districts serving larger shares of students from families with low incomes are more likely to report having fair or poor facility conditions and report spending less on maintenance. These inequities in school building conditions and local property tax revenues are rooted in racist housing policies that segregated neighborhoods and limited wealth in communities of color.
Advocates have a role to play in ensuring all public school students have access to high-quality facilities. With changes to federal education policy expected under the incoming Trump administration, state and local policymaking will be a critical avenue for building and improving schools.
How do state-level funding and policies affect students’ access to quality school facilities?
School districts, particularly those serving low-wealth communities, depend on state funding for various education costs, including the rehabilitation and construction of facilities. But some states don’t provide substantial funding to support school construction and renovation. States may also fail to allocate funding in a way that minimizes the differences between districts that serve students from high-income households and those that serve students from low-income households.
Recent Urban Institute research on new school facilities highlights two cases in which state policies contributed to inequitable access to quality school buildings across districts.
In Memphis, the State of Tennessee supported a school district line being drawn between a predominantly white suburb, Germantown, and the predominantly Black Memphis Shelby County School District (MSCS) in 2013. That year, the state legislature passed a law that allowed Germantown and five other suburban municipalities to secede from MSCS, create their own school districts, and collect and distribute funding for schools based on the new districts’ higher property values.
Though MSCS initially retained control of three of the eight schools it was operating in Germantown, the State passed legislation in 2022 that prevented county school districts from controlling buildings inside a municipal district’s boundaries. A subsequent settlement forced MSCS to sell or transfer its three remining schools in Germantown. These policy changes shrank the funding base for MSCS and left the district to build a new high school facility on a shoestring budget.
Memphis is not alone. In Allentown, the city’s school district received inadequate financial support from the state for decades under an inequitable funding system that was ruled unconstitutional. The state’s “hold harmless” policy guaranteed that school districts got the same amount of funding year over year, even when their local revenues increased or their student enrollments declined.
In 2019, only about 10 percent of state funding in Pennsylvania was distributed in a way that accounted for school districts with more English learners, low-income students, or more students overall. As a result, Pennsylvania school districts serving larger shares of students of color received less funding than majority-white districts with the same levels of wealth. The state’s charter school policy also forced Allentown—a district with limited busing for public school students—to provide transportation for almost 3,000 charter and private school students, contributing to financial losses for the district.
How could investments in school facilities change under the incoming presidential administration?
Federal grants and programs for high-poverty schools make funding more equitable across higher- and lower-income school districts. In schools and organizations receiving federal funding, the Office for Civil Rights protects students from discrimination based on their race and ethnicity, sex, English learner status, or disability status. Recent federal investments from American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have provided resources for eliminating disparities in the quality of school buildings within and across states.
The 2024 Republican Party platform, however, calls for decreasing federal education oversight and support (PDF). That means states may have more power to uphold—or undermine—investments that support access to quality school facilities for all students.
What role can advocates play?
Going forward, advocates have a few ways to help ensure states’ investments improve students’ access to new or well-maintained schools. They can
- compel states to distribute federal funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to communities;
- build awareness and support in communities for school funding proposals that depend on voter approval, given that 35 states require some level of voter approval for issuing funding for school construction projects; and
- call for state courts to dismantle inequitable funding policies that state laws uphold, as was done in Pennsylvania.
In addition, the National Center on School Infrastructure helps school, municipal, and state policymakers with the stewardship of school facilities. Among its many resources, the center offers a process for reforming school-facilities funding that starts with research and engagement and includes strategies designed to change the systems that produce inadequate and inequitable access to quality public school facilities.
Advocates can use these strategies to ensure more students have the opportunity to attend new and properly maintained schools, especially in school districts like Memphis and Allentown, where local funding from property taxes is inadequate.
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