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…

At their best, K-12 public school systems can be engines of social and economic mobility. Unfortunately, schools in lower-income districts -- whose students have the greatest academic needs -- often receive less funding than their counterparts in more affluent districts. Discussions about closing these funding gaps usually zoom all the way out to…

As populist forces stretch apart higher education and government, colleges lobby in measurable ways to secure scarce funding and respond to accountability regulations. The non-profit and corporate lobbying literature provides a basis of comparison to ask if colleges lobby like corporations, which have been successful lobbyists under challenging…

This Policy Snapshot provides examples of legislation in 13 states that have proposed or enacted legislation addressing the following principles of K-12 funding models: attendance and enrollment, revenue, and equity-based initiatives. All 50 states allocate K-12 funding in different ways. Refer to this two-page reference guide, which defines and…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to investigate the funding equitably across community college districts in Michigan. Pursuant to this investigation, the disproportionate effect that community college funding has on underserved populations was examined. This research utilized a quantitative approach, including descriptive statistics,…

This study examines the impact of court-ordered finance reform in New York State resulting from "Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York" on equity of inputs using synthetic controls. The findings herein indicate court mandated education finance reform in New York had little to no impact on equity of educational inputs despite an…

The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study was to explore how school administrators described their understanding of the decision-making process in the allocation of funds to urban elementary schools in New York. Twelve participants took part in online questionnaires followed by Zoom interviews. A convenience sample of principals were…

With the economic halt precipitated by the COVID-19 virus, states are starting to prepare for and beginning to address the budgetary squeeze that is sure to come absent of massive federal stimulus dollars. At the end of March, New York State was the first state to come out with a post-COVID-19 state budget (the Legislative Budget). In early April,…

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…

Lawsuits challenging state methods for funding public schools have been launched in 46 of the 50 states, and in recent years they have been extraordinarily successful. Since 1989, plaintiffs have prevailed in over 65 percent of the final liability decisions in cases based on "adequacy claims"--assertions that all students have a…

California policymakers have established the expectation that all public school students should have access to a broad course of study, in classes where instruction is consistent with the state's content standards. Further, the state holds schools and school districts accountable for their ability to ensure that all students achieve at a specified…

The research described in this paper expands on attempts to conceptualize, measure, and evaluate the degree to which states have aligned their finance systems with their respective accountability policies. State education finance and accountability policies serve as levers to provide equal educational opportunities for all students--scholars have…

With nearly 10 percent of U.S. elementary and secondary students less than fully fluent in English, many school districts are struggling to develop the capacity to meet the needs of these nearly 5 million children from immigrant and refugee backgrounds. More than two-thirds of these students live in the traditional immigrant-destination states of…

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) playbook series has explored strategies and processes states can use to strengthen CTE program quality and provide students with pathways to postsecondary credentialing and middle- and higher wage career opportunities. In the first three CTE Playbooks, ExcelinEd provided a high-level view of how states can…

The aim of this research was to examine the influence of fiscal determinants on high school graduation rates for African-American students in Long Island public schools during the 2019- 2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022 school years, within the context of various federal initiatives and educational equity policies. Utilizing ANOVA and linear…