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Business-Managed Democracy

“Business-managed democracies are those in which the political and cultural arrangements are managed in the interests of business”

Sharon Beder

Business-Managed Education

US School Funding Equity

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In the US, there are enormous variations in government funding of schools because of the reliance on local taxes. The funding of schools varies from $3000 per student per year to $30,000. Much of this variation occurs within each state.

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Rich people in the United States are able to buy some of the world’s finest education for their children, either in private academies or in well-financed, suburban, public-school districts. In contrast, children of the poor are often crowded into miserable rural or inner-city schools whose annual per-student support may be one-fifth or less of that in nearby, suburban publics schools… schools in slum neighbourhoods must contend with dangerous and decaying buildings, gross overcrowding, violence, and inadequate funding for even basic instruction.

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Inequities are further exacerbated by the differing ability of parents to raise supplementary money for schools. While parents in poor districts struggle to raise a few thousand dollars for their schools, parents in wealthier districts raise tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars for their schools.

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Source: Patrick St. John, 'What is the Color of School Closures?', Open Society Foundations, 21 May 2013
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US Funding Inequities – Some Figures

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Maine School Fundraising

The following table shows that in Maine the poorest school districts have to raise the largest amounts of money to operate their schools.

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Contributers' Updates and Examples

If you have any examples or updates you would like to contribute please email them to me and I will add them here. Please give references for where you sourced the information.