Affluent Gwinnett schools benefit more from E-SPLOST funding

Revenue from the extra penny for schools on the county sales tax rate has built more than four dozen new school buildings in Gwinnett County in the past 20 years.

But not everyone has reaped the benefit of a new school from the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax program.

Three-fourths of the new SPLOST-funded schools built in Gwinnett opened where most students were affluent, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution data analysis showed.

The percentage of children in the Gwinnett schools who are poor has risen significantly over the lifespan of the SPLOST program — from about one child in six in 1997 to every other child today.

Meanwhile, population growth has been a significant factor in where new schools are placed. Nearly all of the new SPLOST schools in Gwinnett County were built inside or within a mile of a census tract where the population grew by 25 percent or more between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the AJC found.

Read more about how E-SPLOST funding is doled out, see a map of the locations of SPLOST-funded schools and check out interactive graphics with lots of other information onMyAJC.com.

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