During the past several years, school district personnel have faced an arduous task of convincing a local electorate--including those who are not directly associated with local schools--to increase its own tax rate. Convincing demographic groups that have a vital interest in improving school facilities can be an easier task. Parents who want to…

Beginning in the early 1970s, plaintiffs initiated a veritable tidal wave of litigation over financing public education in states with unequal funding for students in poor school systems. In the only case on school finance to reach the United States Supreme Court, "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez" (1973), the…

This article features Strategic School Funding for Results (SSFR) project, a new joint initiative of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Pivot Learning Partners (PLP) aimed at improving school finance, human resources, and management systems in large urban school districts. The goal of the project is to develop and implement more…

Ipswich, with about 2,200 students, is one of the many school districts in Massachusetts. Ipswich is governed by an open town meeting at which every registered voter may speak and vote. Budgets in Ipswich are highly detailed public documents in which every salary, classroom, and operating expenditure is identified. The budget book provides…

Reviews court decisions involving challenges to state systems of financing education. The challenges have been based on Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection. To date 24 states have been involved with litigation. Systems that promote local control have been generally held to be constitutional. (42 references) (MD)

Tracking has contributed considerably to the basic inequality of funding among American schools. To move to a heterogenous environment, districts must understand the concept of resource and program equity, commit to a planning process that allocates time and resources, provide ongoing inservice, downplay standardized test results, and phase-in…

A Texas school district initiated a budget development process using peer review committees representing each of the seven major units of the district. The process aims to rank budget requests based on district goals and to improve communication among district units. (MLF)

Discusses the potential of state accountability systems and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to reduce the achievement gap and funding disparities, thus providing greater educational equality for poor and minority students. (Contains 21 references.)

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,…

The nation's schools are facing multiple problems regarding facilities and capital outlay needs for new buildings, additions, and renovations to support technology and instructional infrastructures. Options include use of current revenues, sinking funds, full-state funding, equalization grants, and state aid or loan programs. Financing of facility…

Discusses legal definition of school-finance "adequacy" and four methods for determining the cost of an adequate system: Cost function, observational methods, professional judgment, and costs of a comprehensive school design. Draws implications for school districts' resource-allocation decisions based on adequacy. (Contains 21 references.) (PKP)

Discusses state efforts to link education reform with educational adequacy. Describes four approaches for investigating this linkage: statistical modeling, empirical observation, professional judgment, and whole-school design. Investigates educational adequacy in Michigan's school-finance reform efforts by examining urban school districts. Finds…

Accurate transactional financial data are necessary for governmental compliance; transformational information is crucial for measuring and improving school performance. Some districts are shifting from a systems to a service, focus, from partial to full-cost accounting, from centralized to decentralized reporting procedures and facilities, and…

Analyzes six issues collectively addressed in school-finance-equity rulings by the supreme courts of New Jersey, Vermont, Ohio, and New Hampshire: responsibility for public education, court jurisdiction, constitutional definitions of an efficient/thorough education, district funding levels, state education-finance systems, and property-tax/funding…

Student fees are a growing source of private funding for public education in revenue-limitation states like Wisconsin. Escalating public-school fees jeopardizes two principles: access to a free education and responsibility for publicly funding an enterprise to which all children are guaranteed access. (Contains 40 references.) (MLH)