This article analyses the Swedish case of the government's funding for equity, which annually provides over 600 million euros to improve equity. Being one of the largest funding schemes ever for work towards educational equity it also provides full autonomy for local education authorities (LEAs) to use the money at their discretion. By studying…

Despite growing concerns about the harmful effects of "hardening" schools through increased police and surveillance on school campuses, little research has examined trends in financial resources allocated to these programs, practices, and personnel. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing trends and patterns in school…

In this paper, we contribute to the literature on school facility funding by examining California's facility funding formula and assessing how the current state system facilitates meeting annual investment standards in facility stewardship and upkeep. To do this, we quantify the total school square footage of school facilities and then calculate…

When the state of Texas took control of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in the summer of 2023, it marked the end of a multi-year legal battle between the district and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the beginning of a community-led campaign to re-take control of the district. Since, students and community groups have rallied to…

I examine whether the impact of the Great Recession on school district spending, the allocation of resources, and student achievement varied depending on the strength of state's teachers' unions. Employing a diff-in-diff-in-diff identification strategy, I find that school districts in states with strong teachers' unions experienced significantly…

Limited research examines the impact of accountability interventions on outcomes beyond test-based measures of short-term academic achievement. We examine the effects of the 2012 state takeover and districtwide turnaround of Massachusetts' Lawrence Public Schools--a district serving a majority-low-income, majority-Hispanic student population--on…

Summer programs have historically been a staple in public school districts' arsenals to help students keep up academically and recover from summer break-related academic setbacks. In addition to academic support, summer programs may have a positive impact on students' physical and mental health, development of interests, and development of social…

This paper examines the financial transparency and accountability practices before and after the 2023 state takeover of the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Superintendent Mike Miles and his Board of Managers reallocated critical district resources towards troubling new "priorities," while the district was facing a sizable…

Increasing attention has been paid to rural education policy and research, yet few studies have examined the conceptualization of rural school districts. This study provides a conceptual and empirical examination of the definitions of rural districts. The results illustrate that a common, singular definition of rural is elusive and there is a…

In this quasi-experimental study, we examined STEMscopes program impacts on science achievement in Longhorn ISD. The report specifically analyzed STEMscopes impacts on STAAR and MAP Growth scores. The present study used a school-level quasi-experimental design, where 8 STEMscopes schools were selected for inclusion and 8 comparison schools (using…

Although environmental education (EE) scholars celebrate the diversity of organizations that engage in this work, the challenge remains how to bring these organizations together. Over the last decade, scholars have called for building bridges, but we still know very little about organizational networking and integration processes in EE. In this…

Chronic absenteeism spiked during the pandemic and remains a serious problem. Drawing on the American Enterprise Institute's Return to Learn Tracker chronic absenteeism data collection, which includes district-level data from 44 states, this report documents modest progress: National chronic absenteeism fell to 25.4 percent in 2023 and to 23.5…

Background: After the near-universal school closures in the United States at the start of the pandemic, lawmakers and educational leaders made plans for when and how to reopen schools for the 2020-21 school year. As school reopening plans and data sets aggregating reopening statuses became available, researchers moved quickly to assess how a range…

The prevalence of educator shortages has long been a topic of research and policy discussions in Illinois. Across multiple years, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS) have collected data and reported on the magnitude, severity, and impact of shortages statewide. Prior…

For the past thirty years, Michigan has used Emergency Management (EM) and receiverships to solve city and school finance issues. The impact of these state intervention policies has been highly publicized and has led to institutional distrust among black citizens in urban communities --with the Flint water crisis standing out as the most infamous…