Racial Stratification and Local Education Funding

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Abstract

Abstract Models of racial effects on education taxation often assume that different races affect taxation symmetrically, and do not distinguish between the distributions of students and adults. Stratification economics suggests that voters are less willing to fund education when students are of racial groups stigmatized by a dominant group of adult voters. If so, the effects of student racial and ethnic diversity on local revenue effort will differ from the effects of adult diversity, and will be different for different racial and ethnic groups, since adults may stigmatize where they have the ability to do so, and students may be stigmatized. Using data from United States school districts, I find significant differences in the effects of student and adult racial/ethnic diversity. Increasing percentages of Black and Hispanic students have positive effects on funding in diverse districts, but in predominantly White districts, this effect is present for Hispanic but not Black students. The results support the theory that White voters stigmatize Black, but not Hispanic, students when they are the dominant adult group. The findings are evidence for stratification as part of the explanation for racial disparities in education spending, and for the importance of considering student and adult distributions separately.
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Racial Stratification and Local Education Funding | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Racial Stratification and Local Education Funding Stephen Schmidt This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9236881/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Revision Version 1 posted 11 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Models of racial effects on education taxation often assume that different races affect taxation symmetrically, and do not distinguish between the distributions of students and adults. Stratification economics suggests that voters are less willing to fund education when students are of racial groups stigmatized by a dominant group of adult voters. If so, the effects of student racial and ethnic diversity on local revenue effort will differ from the effects of adult diversity, and will be different for different racial and ethnic groups, since adults may stigmatize where they have the ability to do so, and students may be stigmatized. Using data from United States school districts, I find significant differences in the effects of student and adult racial/ethnic diversity. Increasing percentages of Black and Hispanic students have positive effects on funding in diverse districts, but in predominantly White districts, this effect is present for Hispanic but not Black students. The results support the theory that White voters stigmatize Black, but not Hispanic, students when they are the dominant adult group. The findings are evidence for stratification as part of the explanation for racial disparities in education spending, and for the importance of considering student and adult distributions separately. Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Revision Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 12 May, 2026 Reviews received at journal 11 May, 2026 Reviews received at journal 22 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 06 Apr, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 03 Apr, 2026 Reviews received at journal 31 Mar, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 31 Mar, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 31 Mar, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 30 Mar, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 30 Mar, 2026 First submitted to journal 26 Mar, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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