NC's rich and poor gap widens
The Public School forum just released its 19th annual school finance study, showing that the gap between the state's richest and poorest counties has widened. The group examined real estate assets in 100 counties to show the amount of wealth being tapped per child. It also ranked districts by county-funded per pupil expenditures.
This was interesting: The real estate gap widening between wealthiest and poorest counties increased frrom $477,477 in 1997 to $1.1 million in 2005. And the taxable real estate wealth available per child in the wealthiest counties was about $1.4 million compared to $258,318 in the poorest counties.
Guilford County dropped down from 28 in 2003 to 29 in 2004 in the rankings of adjusted property valuations per student, under Mecklenburg and Wake counties. The district ranked 10 again in 2004 for county spending per student, also below Mecklenburg and Wake.
