Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) are colleges and universities across the United States and U.S. Territories enrolling significant percentages of racially minoritized undergraduate students or created with the explicit purpose of serving specific populations of racially minoritized students under various programs created by U.S. Congress (U.S.…

In this paper, we put forth a framework called Critical School Finance, articulating the framework itself and then applying it to school facilities finance. First, we go back to first principles and discuss what 'critical' denotes, revisiting critical theorist Max Horkheimer's seminal essay 'Traditional vs. Critical Theory.' Second, we offer five…

This study offers a comparative examination of desegregation policy reforms in Belgium, Chile, and the Netherlands, addressing equity reforms to universal school choice systems. Through an analysis of the reform trajectories, we explore the evolution of policies, the causal mechanisms of change, efforts to institutionalize policies, and the…

In partnership with nine States, the Department piloted a monitoring protocol on two related resource equity provisions under Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)--(1) the requirement for States to periodically review resource allocation in LEAs serving a significant number of schools identified…

Housing policy directly impacts schools. Public schools typically reflect their neighborhood demographics because most students are assigned to schools based on their residence. In 2021, over two thirds of K-12 public school students nationwide attended their neighborhood school. Thus, any serious hope of integrating America's public education…

The Ministry of Education provides schools with equity funding, in addition to their core funding, so they can work in different ways to help students with socioeconomic barriers reach their potential. Through Budget 2022, the Government has provided a 50% ($75 million) increase in equity funding. From January 2023, the Ministry has used the…

As states reckon with racial enrollment and attainment gaps in higher education, some have made efforts to address them through their higher education funding. Two common approaches are outcomes-based funding (OBF) and Promise programs, as each can be designed with an explicit race equity lens. This report summarizes a two-year study examining the…

This article is an exploratory analysis of nearly 40 years of trends in education funding to explore the current state of funding for Indian elementary and secondary (K-12) education and whether it is sufficient. A description of the current funding system for K-12 Indian education, four programs undergirding the analysis, and relevant literature…

This paper takes a novel time series perspective on K-12 school spending. About half of school spending is financed by state government aid to local districts. Because state aid is generally income conditioned, with low-income districts receiving more aid, state aid acts as a mechanism for risk sharing between school districts. We show that…

Federal housing policy continues to rely heavily on the private market and the immense capital at its disposal for the production of low income housing. But among government housing officials and across the broad network of non-profit housing professionals in the U.S., the belief in a "right to housing" is strong, along with a vision of…

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) began tracking civil rights related provisions in state Qualified Allocation Plans (QAPs) in 2008, out of concern for a growing concentration of Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) developments in high poverty, segregated neighborhoods, a trend which had already generated fair housing…

Racially segregated schools influence the distribution of educational opportunity. When students of different races enroll in separate schools, systematic differences in access to school resources and exposure to high levels of student need can emerge. Using recently available national school-level finance data, we find that typical Black and…

In the Fiscal Year 2020 Executive Budget Recommendation, Governor Whitmer proposes a series of investments which prioritize access to opportunity for students who have historically been left behind and underserved in Michigan's public education system. This includes students of color, students from low-income families and students with…

Charter schools are tuition-free public schools operated by independent organizations. Freed from many rules and topdown policies constraining district-operated schools, charter school leaders have direct control over most school-level decisions. Indiana has the best charter school law in the country, according to the National Alliance of Public…

Ever since the first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992, the battle for fair funding has raged across the land. Advocates of charters--independently run, nonprofit public schools--have pressed hard to eliminate the massive disparities in the funding that charter students receive when compared with their district-operated peers serving…