For instance, seven of seven schools in Seattle's Southeast neighborhoods are getting less than their entitlement while five of six in the Northeast zone get more. Our study demonstrated that 74 percent of schools with high proportions of poverty students (60 percent or more) receive less than half their budget entitlement. Meanwhile 100 percent of the most affluent schools (with fewer than 20 percent of poverty students) get more.

Much of the problem here is that some schools can attract and hire better teachers. This kind of budget and accounting system reinforces and magnifies this imbalance, creating a cycle where the good schools get better and the low-performing schools get worse.

In Los Angeles, which has a similar staffing policy, the disparities in staffing among schools are out of control. While one school boasts 130 applicants per opening, another principal gloomily admits that, "hiring a teacher in my school can be like choosing your favorite Menendez brother, that is, when I have any applicants at all."

(Source: Marguerite Roza, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/24/00)