The Atlantic, August 24, 2016: Why School Funding Will Always Be Imperfect

“But many others haven’t. In fact, both the Los Angeles Unified and West Contra Costa Unified school districts have faced lawsuits for budgeting money meant for these children on other expenses, such as special-education services and teacher raises. And Long Beach Unified School District, just south of Los Angeles, could be next. It has received international acclaim for the caliber of education it provides. In 2003, it even won the $1 million Broad Prize, an annual award meant for public-school systems that improve student performance while narrowing achievement gaps between low-income and minority students and their peers. In part because of those strides, it’s spent much of its state funding on things like AP classes. Still, while such spending certainly furthers the school district’s aims for prestige, some worry it ignores the basic needs of underprivileged youth—children who are underrepresented in advanced programs and overrepresented in suspension rates, according to Angelica Salazar, a senior policy associate with the Children's Defense Fund in California. These kids, Salazar argued, would benefit from more from school-discipline reform or implicit-bias training for teachers than they would AP tests.”