Some Kids Have All the Luck

Literally.

The spending gap between the wealthiest and poorest Illinois school districts grew last year to the biggest difference in a decade, according to a published report.

The gap between the richest and poorest districts was $19,361 per student during the 2003-2004 school year - about $4,000 dollars more than the prior school year, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis of state financial data.

For example, the small Rondout elementary district in Lake County spent the most money on its students with $23,799 per pupil. Meanwhile, Tazewell County's Central School District 51 spent $4,438 dollars per student last school year, according to the report in Monday's Tribune.

The disparity is, of course, due to property taxes being the primary funding source for public education. So kids who have the best start in life by being born to wealthy parents, which all but guarantees them all the educational tools money can buy, not to mention decent health care and three squares a day, are also fortunate enough to have the most funds spent on them per head by their public schools.

In a related news item, schools across the country are providing “school lunches” over the summer, too, so the poorest students can maintain a healthy level of nutrition when not being properly fed by the school lunch programs available to needy kids during the school year.

Here’s the problem with social Darwinism—though it may be intended to “starve the beast” of government-funded programs and essentially expects the poorest citizens to sink or swim, thereby eventually ridding the country of endemic abject poverty one way or another, it simply doesn’t work. The underclass actually grows, as more people on the edge fall off of it, and local governments, whose members don’t have the luxury of apathy provided by distance, are forced to make choices about how to spend their shoestring budgets—and when faced with the choice of slashing a budget to keep kids fed, who with a conscience, who among those who must look hungry children in the eye each day in their towns, will opt for smaller government?

If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, the Bush administration ought to get real serious about how strong our national chain is, because the weakest of our number aren’t getting any stronger thanks to their bullshit policies.