School funding and racist causality: historical and QuantCrit perspectives

Racial disparities in K-12 education funding have a negative impact on student outcomes and have been documented by researchers for decades. Yet, these disparities persist in many states. In this paper, I survey empirical evidence on racial disparities in K-12 funding and their impact. Then, I draw on insights from QuantCrit and recent historical scholarship to examine how racial funding gaps get created, maintained, and misunderstood in research and policy. I discuss how the traditional explanation offered for these disparities in research and policy — the underfunding of poor school districts through race-neutral lawmaking — is untenable. While the allocation of fewer resources to poorer school districts contributes to funding inequities, I describe how recent work shows the marginalization of poor districts by ostensibly race-neutral policies cannot, on its own, explain race-based funding differences. Instead, I suggest that researchers consider the role of ‘racist causality’ — a term coined by historian Leah Gordon to describe the failure of social science to address racism as an explanatory variable during the 1960s and 1970s — when studying the distribution of education funding. • Racial funding gaps are large, well-documented, and shape student outcomes. • District poverty alone can't explain funding gaps; racism plays a causal role. • State policies actively create racial funding gaps beyond local wealth effects. • Invalid funding measures conceals substantial racial funding disparities. • Concealing gaps mirrors quantitative research’s failure to theorize racism causally.