Reevaluating School Administration Priorities—How Inadequate Funding Ruins Equity

By Hafsah Syed

As California has increasingly disinvested from its public education system, school administrators are forced to expend their effort on maintaining school supplies and avoiding budget cuts. They are unable to give equity the time and energy it deserves.

School administrators face difficult conversations on how to spend insufficient funds, increase standardized test scores, and address parent, teacher, and school board concerns. The issue is, when schools don’t have enough money to continuously supply bathrooms with soap or replace outdated history textbooks, administrators have little time, space, and energy to address equity issues. Administrative capacity is spent keeping schools functioning with lackluster funds, instead of closing achievement gaps and helping BIPOC students thrive.

All students deserve a high-quality education that opens endless doors and possibilities. However, this can only occur if we remove systemic barriers within the education system and uplift our Black and Brown students. Fully funding schools is extremely important. Not just because it restores the ability of schools to fulfill its main purpose—nurturing and cultivating the next generation—but also because it gives school administrators the brainspace to create systemic change and address education equity.