Julius W. Hobson

Eduwonk thinks comparability--equity in resources between schools--is the "sleeper" issue of the NCLB reauthorization.  The funny thing is, comparability is actually the kind of issue that can keep you up at night.

Let's start with the basics: should states and districts be required to spend the same amount of money at schools poor kids attend as those that other kids attend? Yes. Should that be true within districts and between districts? Yes. Is the greatest disparity in spending between districts, not within districts. Yes.

But for the sake of argument, let's focus on within district spending, as comparability does. Advocacy groups like Ed Trust counter that the current comparability provision in NCLB is meaningless because it excludes salary differentials.  In other words, comparability masks, rather than uncovers, that schools with a more senior teaching staff spend more on teacher salaries than schools with a more junior teaching staff. 

Their solution, manifest in the Miller-McKeon bill, is to require districts to have equal average per pupil expenditures of state and local funds for teacher salaries between Title I and non-Title I schools. Sounds reasonable and just, no? But how do you get there?  Anticipating the objections of other education groups, the new comparability language also states that the provision does not require the forced or involuntary transfer of teachers. Again, sounds reasonable and just, right?

The problem is twofold 1) saying transfers are not required is not the same as saying they are prohibited and 2) getting teachers to move between schools is no easy task. Can it be done through incentives? Sure.  Will it be done that way in all of the school districts that have comparability problems?  Not likely.  Will some school districts force teachers to move? Probably.

At this point, you might be asking yourself, hasn't this issue arisen before, maybe in the context of desegregation? Yes, it has. In the 1967 Hobson v. Hansen decision, Judge Skelly Wright ruled that the District of Columbia public schools deprived African-American and poor students of their right to equal educational opportunity. In 1970, Judge Skelly further ruled in Hobson II that per pupil expenditures between schools had to be equalized.

So what happened? As documented by Larry Cuban in the Educational Administration Quarterly back 1975, the school board opted to transfer 300 teachers. And did it work, did schools with the poorest kids get more experienced teachers?  Not according to April Witt of the Washington Post who, in her piece this past summer on the storied history of the DC public schools wrote, "a study later found many of the best, most experienced black teachers moved to schools in white neighborhoods."  Teachers decided to leave the District rather than be forced to teach somewhere they didn't want to teach.

Although Hobson happened over 35 years ago, it serves as an object lesson on how the new comparability requirements might play out in some districts. Those advocating for changes to comparability should be wary of unintended consequences, even when the goal is as noble as getting more resources to poor kids.

Judge James Skelly Wright

Thanks JBS and SD.