Education finance is a messy topic for journalists, and the data are far from easily digestible. Reporters may default to the scarcity narrative because it seems like a safe and tidy way to reference the larger challenges associated with school finance (including inequities, debates on how to spend funds, frustration with low outcomes, labor demands, etc.). Plus, it fits with a near-constant stream of advocacy from the education establishment for more funding.
While these issues are always difficult to explain, this last year has made issues of education finance and economics especially hard to neatly summarize.
At the same time school leaders are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re also facing potentially destabilizing enrollment declines and a tumultuous labor market. And yet, with strong funding increases in recent years and the largest-ever federal investment in K-12 schools, districts also have more resources at their disposal than ever before. But too often that’s not being reported as it should be.
As such, reporting on school spending strictly through a lens of scarcity can lead the public astray and produce headlines that get repeated despite being downright wrong.
Reporting on school spending strictly through a lens of scarcity can lead the public astray and produce headlines that get repeated despite being downright wrong.