Equity funding of schools: what do we learn from the literature about its effectiveness?

Education is a key instrument to strengthen social cohesion, overcome social disadvantage and facilitate upward social mobility. Nevertheless, still today, millions of children are not given full opportunities to develop their abilities and to maximise their educational success. As children should not be held accountable for unequal opportunities that are due to exogenous circumstances, equity funding policies (EFPs) are implemented in many countries to tackle educational inequalities. In this article, an international review of the existing effectiveness studies concerning equity funding in Western countries was provided. The literature on the effectiveness of EFPs tends to show mixed results, with the exception of schemes targeting early learners. The latter have been proven to be highly cost-effective. All in all, we found that evaluation studies yield moderate positive effects. However, the results often did not meet the expectations of policy makers and educational providers, causing some scepticism about the effectiveness of EFPs. Six key determinants of the success were examined in this paper that can help explain both weaknesses and strengths of national EF schemes; (1) the general context in which EFPs are implemented, (2) the pre-existing ‘Matthew effects’ in the baseline funding of schools, (3) the (in)effective use of additional resources, (4) adequate targeting of the additional resources, (5) the monitoring and evaluation, and (6) the degree of equity of educational systems as such. These determinants should be kept in mind in designing and evaluating EFPs. In order to establish opportunities for improvement, this review provided seven guidelines for policy and educational providers: (1) minimise the impact of adverse mechanisms in the social and educational context, (2) level the playing field in the baseline funding of schools, (3) clarify the objectives, target groups and regulatory framework of EFPs, (4) strengthen monitoring and evaluation practices to ensure that equity goals are met, (5) Develop and promote professional development programmes for teachers and school leadership with a specific focus on equalizing opportunities, (6) target resources wisely, preferably based on pupil profiles rather than territorial criteria, and concentrated at the earliest possible age so as to prevent gaps rather than having to fill them ex post, and (7) do not overlook the ‘excellence gap’. These guidelines are however no guarantee for success, as each education system has unique characteristics. In order to obtain successful EFPs, these guidelines should be adjusted to the national and/or local challenges.status: publishe