It’s not every day that you hear good news about school funding, which may be why Stephen Colbert’s announcement that he would fund almost 1,000 projects for 800 plus teachers at more than 375 South Carolina schools went viral yesterday.
Colbert used the proceeds of an auction of his old stage set on The Colbert Report and matching funds from The Morgridge Family Foundation’s Share Fair Nation and ScanSource, which distributes technology products. DonorsChoose.org will fund all of the projects. Colbert is a South Carolina native. He also has a long list of causes he has donated to over the years, including donating his Super PAC money to several charity groups.
Colbert made his announcement to the elementary school Alexander Elementary, located in Greenville, through a live feed from New York. DonorsChoose.org has been a great boon to the school. The elementary school is a Title I school that has received more than $125,000 for supplies and activities from DonorsChoose.org. ScanSource has been working with DonorsChoose.org in South Carolina for a decade, according to GreenvilleOnline.
But it’s important to examine why schools are looking to nonprofits, foundations, businesses looking for good press, and hopefully, some very generous celebrity.
After the recession, education budgets were slashed across the country. In 2011, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that elementary schools and high schools were receiving less state funding than the year before in at least 37 states, that at least 30 states had funding below 2008 levels, if not much lower and that 17 states cut per student funding by more than 10 percent compared to their pre-recession budgets.
But funding has not improved much since then. When the center last updated their numbers in October of last year, it found that although most states increased funding from last year, 30 of the 47 states analyzed were still spending less per student than before the recession and 14 states had 10 percent less funding than pre-recession levels. Oklahoma, Alabama, Arizona and Idaho reduced funding per student by more than 15 percent. Colbert’s home state of South Carolina fell 10.2 percent since the recession.
As education cuts become worse, teachers are asked to buy school supplies themselves and ask parents to chip in. Or, they may simply make do with old books and rely on photo copies from newer books in order to teach students.
But there is plenty of blame to go around for why schools aren’t properly funded. That South Carolina elementary school, for instance, receives Title I funding. Title I, part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act first passed in 1965, is the biggest investment the federal government makes in kindergarten through 12th grade education. This funding aims to fill in the gaps and make education funding more equitable within states, so that low-income students don’t lose educational opportunities.
However, a Center for American Progress report on ESEA Reauthorization finds that current formulas actually do the opposite. States investing more in education receive more money in federal funds, despite the fact that those investments are dependent on how wealthy the state is. In this respect, smaller school districts are also put at a disadvantage.
The Southern Education Foundation reports that over half of students from kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012–13 school qualified for free and reduced lunch programs, meaning that the majority of public school students are poor and likely to need more assistance from educators to take part in activities that aren’t provided at home. Unfortunately, Stephen Colbert can’t donate money to all of them.