Study Calls for More School Funds to Aid Poor : Distribution of Money a ‘Conspiracy’ to Help Rich, Education Group Says

Charging that the current distribution of money to public schools is “a conspiracy to spend more money on rich kids and less money on poor kids,” a national education group released a study Monday demanding that schools serve those from the ghettos as well as those from the suburbs.

The far-reaching study by the National Coalition of Advocates for Students, a network of 20 child advocacy organizations, calls for states to raise new funds to help poor children succeed academically, eliminate racial and sexual discrimination in schools and establish in-school support services such as day care for students’ children.

“Public schools have been at the heart of children’s dreams,” Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund and a member of the coalition, said at a news conference.

But Edelman said that the dream has gone sour: One of every four students who makes it to ninth grade drops out before high school graduation; minority students drop out almost twice as often as white students, and black students are labeled as “retarded” or “learning disabled” three times as often as whites.

Many children from poor families are denied a decent education, coalition Chairman Harold Howe II charged, because schools--which depend on revenue from taxes on property in the district--are funded unequally.

Howe, a former U.S. commissioner of education, cited the example of the wealthiest 100 Texas school districts, where minorities are few, saying that they spend an average of $5,500 per student. In contrast, the poorest 100--whose students primarily are Latino--spend $1,800 for each student, he said.

“This clearly shows an intent to keep those folks down there, down there, and keep those folks up there, up there,” Howe declared. He said that disadvantaged students “require the same quality education” as other pupils, but the road for them is longer and harder.

Turning to the issue of sexual discrimination, the study found that young women who become pregnant while in school--many of them poor--have been “all but written off” by the educational system. Teen-age pregnancy accounted for 30% of all dropouts in 1980-82, Edelman said.

The coalition, which conducted hearings in 10 cities, proposed increased funding in many areas, from remedial study in math and English to programs for the handicapped and preschoolers.

“It costs only $500 to provide a year of compensatory education to a student before he or she gets into academic trouble,” the study found. “It costs over $3,000 when one such student repeats one grade once.”

Edelman warned: “We can pay now or we can pay later.”