[323454]

This already exists and it doesn't quite work. School funding and outcomes are less well correlated than you might expect. Some of the worst performing schools and districts are also the best funded. The top causal factor appears to be parental involvement: highly involved parents in even poorly funded schools is better than uninvolved parents in well funded schools.

[spicymaki]

That makes sense. Ultimately when you have distress at home caused by poverty, violence, neglect, etc. the student will be at a disadvantage no matter how good the school is. Distressed parents will lead to distressed children and then distressed schools which creates a cycle. This is ultimately a hard problem to solve because so many issues need to be fixed simultaneously. College is way too late to address this.

[jimbob45]

I was going to say exactly this. I’ll add that free state-sponsored daycare would probably do more for minorities than anything college-related ever could.

[ghaff]

It's very common for urban public schools in particular to have the highest or near-highest funding per student in a state and some of the lowest outcomes in terms of standardized testing and other quantifiable measurements.

[settrans]

It exists in many, many states in some form or another: New Jersey (where every dollar collected from the progressive income tax is funneled redistributionarily to municipalities), Connecticut, and Vermont to name a couple.

For one eye-popping counterexample to the notion that redistributionary school funding policies are effective, it might be worth understanding what happened in Newark[0], where 75% of the school is paid for the state already.

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/schooled

[heavyset_go]

Property taxes pay for local schools in NJ.

[vageli]

Yes for a portion of the school's funding. In NJ there also exist Abbott districts which receive additional funding from the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district