The Education Law Center's annual report on school funding fairness is now available.  For those unfamiliar with the past reports, they provide a sophisticated analysis of all 50 states that breaks school funding into four distinct metrics: the adequacy of the actual funding level in each state; the extent to which a state fairly distributes the funds it has, regardless of the adequacy of those funds; the effort a state exerts to fund education (a poor state can try hard and still produce inadequate funds); and the extent to which public schools are educating all of the states students and, if not, how those students differ from those in private school.  

The report says the following major findings stand out:

• Only two states, New Jersey and Massachusetts, are positioned relatively well on all four fairness indicators. Both states have high funding levels that are also distributed fairly, though New Jersey is ranked much higher than Massachusetts on Effort.
• A number of states are positioned well on three out of four indicators, but fall short on perhaps the most important measure. West Virginia, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine score well on Funding Level, Effort, and Coverage, but all did poorly on the important Funding Distribution measure.
• Missouri, Alabama, and Virginia are poorly positioned on all four fairness measures. All three states received an “F” in Funding Distribution, were in the lower half of the Funding Level ranking, had below average Effort levels, and poor Coverage.
• Texas, Idaho, Arizona, and Nevada rank poorly on all measures except Coverage.
• California, Florida, and Tennessee score quite poorly in all measures except Funding Distribution, though only Tennessee demonstrates a progressive system, while the others are flat.

The report concludes:

Improvements in school finance are often slow and deliberate. The Great Recession, followed by a slow recovery, caused dramatic shifts in state education budgets within a short, six-year time frame. Many states responded to the Recession by rapidly disinvesting in education and using federal stimulus funds to fill the breach. When those short-term funds were exhausted, many states did not respond by restoring state aid even though their overall budgets had improved and even though, as this report shows, many states have the fiscal capacity to do better. The reaction in states to the Recession and the start of the recovery period drives home a crucial point: sustaining investments in education is important to the long-term vitality of a state’s — and the nation's — civic and economic health and well-being. These investments must, to a great degree, be insulated from the short-term economic downturns. States should consider mechanisms to accomplish that objective, and federal stimulus policies must ensure, at a minimum, maintenance of effort in return for receipt of federal funds. It is hoped that this report will spark that discussion in state capitals and in Washington, DC.

Another joint report, Cheating Our Future: How Decades of Disinvestment by States Jeopardizes Equal Educational Opportunity, was released with The Leadership Conference Education Fund (the research end of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights).  That report focuses on the need to "dramatically increase the resources available for public education and, simultaneously, change the way those resources are distributed so that there is true equity in America’s classrooms."

The reports have gotten a lot of press in recent days, which includes additional graphs, data, etc. See, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here.  In short, there is a gold mine of information of school funding inequity coming on line.