To quote a candidate who stands far to the left of my own personal political viewpoint:

“One of the things that I have always believed is that, in terms of education, we have to break our dependency on the property tax, because what happens is the wealthiest suburbs can in fact have great schools but poor, inner-city schools cannot. So I think we need equality in terms of how we fund education, and to make sure the federal government plays an active role to make sure that those schools we need it the most get the funds that they deserve.”

Eduhonesty: After No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, I hesitate to let the federal government run anything, even state rest areas along the highway. I also know that equalizing funding would be a huge loser for households were I live. One year, my local district actually asked the middle school PTO to stop fundraising because the district was having trouble figuring out what to do with the money. They did not need extra funds. Seventeen miles north, where I worked, we would have loved that money. Paper? Paper for the copy machine? Art supplies? Books for the kids? Winter clothing for the kids? We could have found so many uses for that money.

Bernie’s right on this one.

The financial inequities between school districts mattered much less 25 years ago. In the past, those differences meant that financially-disadvantaged students had battered books, uglier cafeterias, and fewer enrichment opportunities. But shabbier materials in uglier buildings could still prepare a student for college.

Now, funding differences mean the difference between learning keyboarding in the third grade or the seventh or even ninth grade. Children in wealthy districts prepare PowerPoints and learn Google Docs in elementary school, sometimes years ahead of less financially-fortunate counterparts. Coding may be an elective in financially comfortable districts. In poor districts, computer-based electives are frequently nonexistent, and even the woodworking and French electives are sometimes cut due to lack of funds.

As much as I shudder at the thought of handing the federal government increased responsibility, I do believe that school funding is inherently inequitable as it stands — something we have all known forever — and that those inequities impact our students far more than they did before technology exploded across the U.S. landscape.

Let’s back Bernie on this one.