Problems of Equality of Opportunity in Education

IT HAS long been known that great differences exist in the financial ability of the several states to support an adequate program of education. The most exhaustive and detailed treatment of this subject that has yet been made is that of Norton and Lawler (16). Data were collected for each of the 115,000 local administrative units of the United States with respect to its educational load and its financial ability. This study presents a graphic inventory of the financing of education for the United States and for each of the states. It contains 192 charts and nearly 100 tables. From these one can get a vivid picture of: (a) inequalities of educational support in the United States; (b) differences in support of public education within the several states; (c) cost of a reasonable minimum state and national program of education; (d) relation of level of support to ability to finance education; (e) relative effort made by the states to support education; and (f) the relation of the level of school support to such matters as school attendance and functional literacy. Federal aid to education is urged as the only reasonable way to correct the educational inequalities growing out of financial inequalities. Norton (13, 14) and Norton and Davies (15) have prepared articles based in the main upon the findings of their investigation for the cooperative study of public-school expenditures. They present pertinent facts with respect to inequality of educational opportunity, among them the differences in education and health revealed by draft boards, and argue forcefully for federal aid.