The New York State Board of Regents' 2004-05 State Aid Proposal put forward the idea of instituting Foundation Aid as a response to concerns about the sufficiency of state education funding then being provided to local school districts. In 2007, prompted by legal action, a call for reform by the Regents, and the election of a new governor with a…

Hold-harmless provisions in state aid formulas are meant to restrict declines in revenues for school districts. They may take several forms, including limits on the changes in state aid from year to year, supplemental funding for districts with declining enrollment, alternatives for calculating the state aid amount, or use of past enrollments in…

Every school district in New York spends more per student than the national average. Yet, there are variations among districts -- largely depending on communities' relative wealth to help fund their school district. State aid attempts to equalize local wealth capacity among districts, which is evident by the fact that more than 72 percent of the…

The link between education funding levels and student outcomes is a matter of continuing debate, including in New York State. State education aid in New York follows a progressive formula that targets more aid to lower-income, higher-need school districts, yet these districts continue to dominate lists of the state's lowest performing schools. The…

Charter schools and school choice are popular reforms believed to improve student performance largely through market competition, increased innovation, or some combination of the two mechanisms. Opponents of school choice argue that such reforms sap needed funds and resources from the traditional public school system. Despite this claim, there has…

For two decades, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute have been tracking nine school districts, typical of districts nationwide, to understand how the spending levels and composition in elementary and secondary education have changed over time. The first report, "Where's the Money Gone?" (1995) tracked expenditures from 1967 to…

The nation's major city public school districts have substantial construction, renovation, modernization, and deferred maintenance needs because of the age and size of their school buildings, shifting populations, and the need to devote substantial resources to instructional personnel to meet their core academic mission. For instance, the average…

In 1997, New York State lawmakers passed the Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) legislation, a bold new approach to early childhood education. It established new part-day Pre-K programs that were free and open to all four-year-olds. Today, the state invests $414 million annually in Pre-K, which serves more than 100,000 children in public schools and…

Analyzes U.S. educational spending levels and sources, providing aggregate data for 50 states. Discusses spending disparities across districts and schools, using Schools and Staffing Survey data and highlighting California and Florida's spending disparities. Discusses how schools use available resources, based on research findings in Florida,…

Presents 1978-87 resource-allocation data for 700 New York State school districts to explore possible (district-level) relationships between administrative inputs and educational output (standardized test scores). Various statistical models show inconsistent results, providing weak support for the contention that administrative resources are…

This report finds that now more than ever, New York needs a strong workforce development system--but declining funds and uncoordinated programs are obstacles to progress. In December 2003, the Center for an Urban Future and the New York Association of Training and Employment Professionals released a report, "Seeking a Workforce System,"…

The present monograph has been "written with a view" to presenting in a simple and concise manner to the general educational public the most significant conclusions reached in the course of an extensive study of school finance, continued for several years and covering a number of states. Some of the data have been taken from bulletins of…

For more than a century, a succession of New York City (NYC) mayors have claimed that they were reducing administrative overhead in the school system and driving more resources to instruction. These claims have been dutifully reported by the press with rarely any effort to verify them. For the last 50 years, the salaries of teachers were increased…

Although New York State introduced its standards-based reform over a decade ago, it remains unclear as to how local education agencies (LEAs) have reconfigured their human resources in response to these initiatives. This paper demonstrates how state-collected personnel data can be used to generate longitudinal indicators of the kinds of…

This paper establishes the importance of examining resource-allocation behavior at microlevels of educational systems and reports on the progress being made in New York to develop and examine a set of relevant indicators. The paper presents findings that were part of a multistate effort conducted by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education…