School districts with a majority of white students received $23 billion more in funding than those with non-white majorities in 2016, even though both categories serve about the same number of students, according to a new report released by EdBuild on Tuesday.
The research and advocacy group based in New Jersey, which concentrates on education funding, found that the large gap in financial support was mostly due to the reliance on local property taxes to support the school systems.
The Washington Post reported that the wealthier communities, which paid significantly more in property taxes ($7,000 per student compared to $4,500), are almost always overwhelmingly white.
Even though non-white school districts received slightly more funds per student from the state, the increase was not enough to offset the overwhelming advantage of those districts with larger property taxes.
The report did not include federal funding, most of which is usually allocated to school districts in the poorest communities, according to The Hill.
EdBuild examined some 13,000 public school districts in the study, with approximately 7,600 districts having more than 75 percent of white students and almost 1,200 districts with more than 75 percent of non-white students.
Because the non-white districts were significantly larger, both categories had about the same number of students overall.
The Post reported that the largest gap in funding was in Arizona, where majority-white districts received $7,613 more money per student than in non-white districts.
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