Chapter 11: Striking a Balance in School Infrastructure Funding

A sound school finance system therefore is fair in distributing resources to all children, provides adequate money to carry out the full range of services assigned, does so at a high level of efficiency without engaging in counterproductive suspicion or begrudging of resources while expecting and receiving measurable assurances of accountability and productivity, and relies on stable and predictable revenue sources—all in the context of meeting the full slate of modern educational needs. To reach this end, school infrastructure funding must be included at full parity if children are to be equally advantaged and none left to the miserable physical conditions that exist in some schools in the United States at the start of the new millennium—i.e., a funding system that is truly unitary in form and effect.