Cabrini Green

Above are pictures of the Cabrini Green area of downtown Chicago. Currently I am reading a book called "Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way" that is about students attending the Carr Academy in Cabrini Green. Writen by the teacher of room 405, he helps these students explore what it is they want to fix about their communities and their lives. It was this approach that the students becqame involved in making a change in addition to getting them excited about learning and doing school work. 

The title of the book is truly an indication of the great story within the pages. For a hopeful and inspirational story about the hope of young students and education please take a look at this book. you will love it.

School financing

So where to begin....all of this research I have been doing on school funding in suburban and urban school districts has lead me to think a lot of new things on policy and funding for schools. From what I have come to understand from materials I have read and lectures in class, all school funding that districts receive come from property taxes that are collected annually for properties in the towns both residential and commercial. When a district is poverty stricken many properties are abandoned therefore no taxes are collected on these properties since there are no owners. When businesses leave the people leave the areas they reside in and follow the jobs, therefore areas become slowly run down and one circumstance exacerbates another causing a catch 22. 

When districts in the state of New Jersey are classified as poverty stricken (more than 30 districts out of the 670) they receive more state and federal funding in order to compensate for the lack of revenue that property taxes would create. 

Since the case of Abbott v. Burke was brought before NJ Supreme Court in 1981 it has been appealed by the board of education and the state 18 times, with decisions in favor of Abbott every time, until now.  

So since the state has found a new formula that works to provide the funding needed for all districts what is going to happen when the funding comes up short. 

Is there a way to create a new policy that funds schools taking money from more areas than only property taxes?