While there is an extensive literature analyzing the relative equity of state funding systems for current operating revenues, there is a dearth of research on capital funding systems. This article presents an analysis of the school capital funding system in Kentucky since 1990, using the operating-revenue analysis concepts of horizontal equity,…

This policy brief describes how the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) has approached the objectives of educational equity and adequacy over the past decade and a half, and reveals how their current finance research has begun to explicitly link the level and use of resources with strategies that districts and schools can deploy to…

The author addresses the problem of the public's attitude toward the issues of educational finance and relates it to the attitude on government spending a a whole. From the results of tax and expenditure limitations on ballot measures in 1978 and 1979, he observes that there is no national movement to copy California's Proposition 13. Polls taken…

This paper examines past school finance reforms of the 1970's, current reforms in the 1980's, and future reforms in the 1990's. Fiscal inequities targeted in the reforms of the seventies resulted in major structural changes in the school finance systems of over 30 states. The reforms not only improved fiscal equity but helped increase…

Traditional school-finance systems need dramatic change to make them more supportive of the goals and strategies of standards. The shortcomings of current structures are reviewed, and suggestions are provided for changing finance structures, including a shift from fiscal equity toward educational adequacy. Elements to enhance a new system are…

The focus of this policy brief is on efforts to redesign state and district school finance systems to align them more closely with the standards-based education reform movement. Past efforts to offset fiscal disparities with state aid in low-property wealth districts have only been moderately successful. Part of the problem lies in the fact that…

School finance is a highly visible issue. Recent sweeping state supreme court decisions have overturned finance structures in New Jersey, Texas, and Kentucky. There are 16 additional states with active or planned cases making school finance litigation, fiscal inequalities, and school finance reform major issues in the state education policy…

Discusses new research directions for school finance that should accompany a national policy shift toward improving education quality. Traces the evolution of school finance, outlines school finance topics related to recently enacted state education reforms, and projects future education policy isues and related financial research problems.…

Proposes both low-cost strategies (administrator academies, teacher institutes, school improvement projects, information dissemination programs) and high-cost strategies (teacher compensation, longer school day and year, greater reliance on technology) for improving educational quality. The author concludes with a discussion of educational…

Presents findings of a 5-year study of U.S. educational finance. Analyzes spending patterns across 50 states and examines staffing patterns and expenditures across curriculum areas in California, Florida, and New York. Although this century has seen a major investment in public education, funding has been distributed unfairly and used…

This paper presents strategies for designing and implementing new and more effective approaches to school-finance structures. The first section discusses state school-finance systems, their inadequacies, and how they have changed dramatically in several states. It explores how varieties of standard school-finance formulas may actually exacerbate…

Outlines the trends in educational funding patterns needed to enact educational reform. Local property taxes, state revenues, and federal aid continue to provide the bulk of financing. Includes two tables. (MD)

The current context of policy issues and limits of current state education data systems underscore the need to create new, detailed, and comprehensive school-level data systems. Such data could be used to illuminate policy issues relating to governance, resource utilization, accountability, equity, and adequacy. In this special issue, authors…

Argues that standards-based education reform has shifted the focus of school finance from equity to adequacy. Requires an explicit connection between the funding provided to schools and the results produced in terms of student learning. (Contains 19 references.) (MLF)

School finance reform will still be a major issue in the 1980s, in both state legislatures and the courts. Reform efforts have concentrated on four issues: differences in expenditure per pupil across districts within a state, links between expenditure disparities and district property wealth, services for special needs students, and unique…