Perspective | North Carolina’s education funding system remains inequitable, report finds

A new report from the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED) builds upon national analyses to provide a deeper look at school funding equity in North Carolina.

The report uses three methodologies for examining funding equity.

1. Spending by Quintile sorts each district into quintiles based on the student or district characteristics and examines spending in the top quintile against spending in the bottom quintile.
2. Weighted Spending compares the weighted average district spending of students in dichotomous groups (i.e. students experiencing poverty vs students not experiencing poverty).
3. Comparison to Adequate Funding is similar to the Spending by Quintile method, but instead of comparing the average spending in quintiles against each other, spending is compared against estimates of the spending necessary to allow all students to reach national average testing results (a measure of adequacy).

For each method, the report looks at funding equity for:

• Students from families experiencing poverty
• District wealth (tax capacity)
• Black students
• Hispanic students
• Students of color
• English learners

The report shows that North Carolina’s school finance system remains inequitable for students from families experiencing poverty, Black students, Hispanic students, English learners, and students in counties with low district wealth. These inequities have remained largely consistent over the past decade.

The report concludes with policy recommendations to improve equity for each student group.