In the K-12 education arena, battle lines can be drawn in numerous areas: curriculum content, school choice, teacher qualifications, school taxes, governance – the list goes on. But one area in which there is broad consensus is the notion that, to the extent feasible, impediments to student success ought to be lifted. Each child ought to have a fair shot at academic achievement.
That challenge is a top concern of the Governor’s Education Excellence Commission, which voted to focus its efforts in 2018 on “providing support to students at risk of academic failure.” To help guide those efforts, Utah Foundation last month released a report, “A Level Playing Field? Funding for Utah Students at Risk of Academic Failure.”
Specifically, the report examines the funding directed at improving K-12 educational outcomes for three groups: students with disabilities, English learners and lower-income students. As part of the study, we looked at various benchmarks nationally to get a clearer picture of whether additional funding for these students approaches adequacy.
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