I think we absolutely need to spend money to address disparities in the experience of African American kids in this country. I think the wrong way to do that is to funnel more money into disproportionately white teachers and school administrators. Direct cash payments to inner city families I think would go a lot further.
We should do both, while sourcing more black teachers and administrators for schools from within those communities. The reality is that the history of impoverishment has set of cycles of negligence and trauma in these communities that money alone can't fix, though it can help change the direction.
Treatment from within the community is needed. Practically, the school is where that happens for the children. It would be great if the families would be able to afford to pay for their own treatment like more well off people do, but realistically, the direct payments would primarily be used pay for basics, like food and the roof over their heads.
Something as simple as bundling up school funds to the state level and redistributing similar per-pupil funds back to districts might help to close the gap - with no change in total expenditure.
Local funding is in fact uneven. But state and federal funding is primarily directed to eliminating those disparities: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/alfresco...
> The paper then examines changes in finances over time—both within and across states— and evaluates how spending levels have changed for school districts that serve students of different races. Spending differences have largely disappeared. Spending levels across districts have converged; most remaining differences in spending are between rather than within states.
Obviously Kansas still spends less than California, but everything is much cheaper in Kansas too.
In addition to what I said earlier, I'll add that though $30,000 sounds like a big scary number, it's not so much when realizing that private schools with similar student support programs in DC go for $40,000-$60,000 a year.
As for DC public school performance, aside from the challenges that attending students often face, it should be known that DC has unfortunately served as a testing ground for a number of unorthodox education philosophies, to the detriment of the students. For at least the last two decades, during which I've been aware of the circumstances, we've had several high-profile school system admins attempt to radically reshape how DC schools "work", leaving a constantly shifting landscape in their wake. Multiple school closures, mass teacher firings and mutinies, charter school scandals, and more, while the basics (building maintenance and suitability, teacher professional training and support, resource access, etc.) are neglected.
If there's any truth to your assertions, it really doesn't have anything to do with the people who just want to provide students with traditional, stable learning environments and the support necessary to take full advantage of them.
Having friends & colleagues from both American Black and African and Black Caribbean backgrounds has given me a tiny glimpse into some of the difference in background and treatment. A Caribbean friend who came here for her PhD in mathematics mentioned to me that she was shocked at how she was treated here in the US -- in her home country, she was universally respected as an educator and a professional, while in the US she was... respected in the classroom, but not on the street. A different friend whose family has been in the US longer than mine, on the other hand, talked about being discouraged from a career in the National Park Service: his grandfather in particular had stories of the violence inflicted on black people in the woods, and felt it would be a very unsafe career. There's a really complex interaction of history, current economics, and personal choice, mediated by our schools. Just looking at the numbers, the US education system is not doing well by black students in particular and many children overall. Rural white kids are also not being served well. No one is getting good math education. And as long as we continue to divide against each other in a fight for artificially limited resources, we won't do better as a nation.