Portable Education Funding Would Help Impoverished Students

A new Center for American Progress report on portable federal funding for low-income students misses the mark on the issue of school choice. According to the report, if students living in poverty can choose to take their federal funding to a better school district, low-income districts might lose some money.

The point of portable funding isn’t for districts to get money, it’s to help students get a better education.

As the report says, “the challenges that low-income students face are significantly greater when the majority of their classmates are also low income.” But portable funding helps impoverished students move into better-performing schools without badly hurting those who remain.

“If anything, the CAP report is an argument to double-down on portability,” Lisa Snell, the director of education and child welfare at the Reason Foundation, told the Washington Examiner. “If they really want equity for kids, they shouldn’t be looking at the money following kids into districts, they should look at where the kids land.”

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