Poor School Quality Is No Longer a Funding Problem

Public-school apologists need a new excuse for the terrible results of many American schools.

Perhaps the biggest lie in American education is that schools serving rich kids spend more than those serving the poor. Where suburban districts bask in shiny textbooks and Astroturf, urban districts suffer crumbling foundations and teacher-bought school supplies. That’s the consensus among “progressives” in statehouses and think tanks alike. But with a handful of exceptions, they’re simply wrong.

They weren’t always wrong. Before Brown v. Board of Education, schools were unequal in dollar terms as well as segregated....