Tax revenue flows to California's nearly 1,000 school districts through many different channels. According to the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence (2007), this system is so complex that the state cannot determine how revenues are distributed among school districts, and after reviewing a large number of academic studies in the Getting…

This article presents the state education finance and governance profile of Alabama. The state is home to 1,538 public schools distributed across 67 county school systems and 64 city school systems. State spending is allocated via two separate budgets, "the general fund" for all noneducation related expenditures and the Education Trust…

This article presents the state education finance and governance of Delaware. Funding for public education generally comes from three sources: the federal government (7.6%), the state government (64.3%), and local governments (28.1%). Educational expenditures for K-12 public schools in Delaware total $1.66 billion. Per-pupil expenditure in the…

This article presents the state education finance and governance profile of North Carolina. The state has 214 school districts and a total enrollment of 1,461,740 students in 2,513 public elementary and secondary schools. The current expenditures per pupil in 2007-2008 added up to $8,521, equaling 19.8% of the median state household income. As in…

It is often suggested that measuring local fiscal ability by full valuation of property per public school pupil is inaccurate and inequitable. One substitute measure proposed is district income per pupil or a combination of district income and property value per pupil. However, using this measure would result in a rise in the aid ratios in only…

This paper, one of three related documents, examines the distributions of general revenues and instructional expenditures across school districts in Michigan. It discusses the equal yield formula for the funding of public schools and examines how the formula has accomplished its objectives. The data indicate success in reducing the effects of…

Investigates the effects of including an income factor in a power equalization aid formula. Some evidence indicates that a power equalization formula with recapture and with an income adjustment may substantially achieve the objective of making education expenditures independent of the wealth of the local district. (Author/IRT)

The purpose of this study was to assess the merit of using personal income in the determination of a school district's fiscal capacity for the apportionment of New York state aid. Both personal income and full valuation of real property suffer from technical weaknesses, but improvements in the data are possible if the state is willing to…

Argues against John's suggestion that state equalization aid to local school districts should be based on measures of per-capita income and assessed property valuation per capita, rather than on measures of local tax revenue and assessed property valuation per pupil. (JG)

If taxes are higher in one town than in another it does not necessarily mean that residents of the low-tax town are better off; they may have had to pay high property prices to live in the more desirable low-tax town. It is incorrect to believe that property wealth differences are the only reason for spending disparities across towns. A more…

Through an examination of the economic and ethical implications of additional redistribution, the author shows that the massive redistribution currently taking place each year makes it very costly to attempt to move still further toward equality. (Author/AM)

Discusses the Illinois grant-in-aid formula for school finance and argues that an income factor needs to be included in the measurement of fiscal effort if the state wants to retain its concept of "equal expenditure for equal effort." (JG)

Among the author's replies to the preceding article are that property tax relief programs do not solve interdistrict inequities under guaranteed tax base formulas, district income better measures fiscal capacity than does property wealth, and intrastate cost differentials do not remedy problems of low-income districts in high-income areas. (RW)

Money to operate Washington's public schools comes from state, local, and federal sources. For the 1995-96 school year, total combined revenue exceeded $5 billion. The largest share of Washington's operating budget is devoted to K-12 education. This paper portrays critical features of Washington's school finance system. It first examines current…

The purpose of the study discussed in this paper was to determine the existence of both a simple wealth neutrality and of a conditional wealth neutrality in special education finance in the state of Illinois. These two concepts are used to determine the presence of equity in public school funding. The research design involved the classifying of…