Federal per-pupil spending rose by an inflation-adjusted 375 percent between 1970 and 2010. School spending also grew steadily and dramatically at the state and local level, tripling between 1970 and 2005. Over the decades the government has prioritized poor children through programs such as Title I, which was created in 1965. “These federal streams accomplished precisely what was intended: helping equalize the funding of poor and affluent districts,” explained education writer Andy Smarick. “As of the 2004–5 school year, America’s highest-poverty districts had per student revenues virtually
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