Separate and Unequal in St. Louis? Strengths and Limitations of School-Level Funding Data Using a QuantCrit Framework.

This article examines school funding disparities in the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan region through a quantitative Critical Race Theory (QuantCrit) framework, emphasizing the interplay of student race, economic disadvantage, and local property wealth in shaping per-pupil expenditures. Using newly available school-level expenditure data alongside traditional district-level data, the analysis reveals significant variation in funding both across and within districts, with local property wealth strongly predicting spending levels. Although districts serving higher shares of Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students exert greater local tax effort, their lower property wealth limits actual funding, perpetuating inequities rooted in historical and ongoing racialized housing and economic discrimination. The study highlights limitations in current data—such as the exclusion of capital expenditures and the conflation of state and local revenues—and underscores the importance of contextualizing quantitative analyses within the region’s history to inform equitable school funding reforms.