There is considerable disagreement in the academic literature about whether raising school expenditure improves educational outcomes. Yet changing the level of resources is one of the key policy levers open to governments. In England, school expenditure has increased by about 40% since 2000. Thus assessing whether such spending has had an impact…

This paper presents a case study of two California school districts, San Francisco and Oakland, each of which have implemented their own versions of what is popularly known as a weighted student formula (WSF). One primary goal of the WSF policy is to increase the equity with which resources are distributed to schools. With respect to equity, the…

By specifying different goals of educational spending across districts, it is found that input (spending) equality and cost minimization improve both the Gini indexes of the college admission rate and public educational spending per student across different districts for the case of Taiwan. While complete output equality is not feasible, the…

During the last two decades, median instructional spending per full-time equivalent (FTE) student at American 4-year colleges and universities has grown at a slower rate than median spending per FTE student in a number of other expenditure categories, including academic support, student services and research. Our paper uses institutional level…

With the financial support of several large foundations and the federal government, creating small schools has become a prominent high school reform strategy in many large American cities. While some research supports this strategy, little research assesses the relative costs of these smaller schools. We use data on over 200 New York City high…

Roemer's [Roemer, J. (1998). "Equality of opportunity". Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.] seminal work on equality of opportunity has contributed to the emergence of a theory of justice that is modern, conceptually clear and easy to mobilize in policy design. Inspired by Roemer's theory, this paper is fundamentally a…

Using longitudinal comparison data, shows that including socioeconomic status as a production function creates serious statistical problems that mask the significance of other school inputs (teacher education and experience, teacher salary, teacher-pupil ratio, and expenditure per pupil). Recommends corrective methodologies. (Contains 35…

Applies neural network methods for forecasting 1991-95 per-pupil expenditures in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools. Forecasting models included the National Center for Education Statistics' multivariate regression model and three neural architectures. Regarding prediction accuracy, neural network results were comparable or superior to…

Examines intrastate equality in educational resource allocation from 1980 to 1987, using school district data on instructional expenditures per student to calculate Gini and Theil coefficients of variation for 1980 and 1987 and make appropriate comparisons. A majority of states have a more equal distribution of instructional expenditures in 1987…

Results of a recent study suggest that school expenditure is important in determining mothers' child-care time. There is a crowding-out effect between school expenditure and a mother's child-care time in lesser educated families. Existing studies may have overestimated school expenditure's true effects on student performance. (Contains 18…

Determines optimal school size by exploring the cost-effectiveness of supplying study fields (services) in Belgian secondary schools. Using information on the fixed cost of supplying a study field (student density and transport cost), one may determine the optimal number of students in each study field. Actual size is far from optimal. (Contains…

Examines the conflict between efficiency and equity in public education finance. Considers district power equalization (DPE), a compromise approach that would require raising tax prices in wealthy districts and lowering them in poorer districts. Simulations for three states show that a "pure" DPE plan would reduce expenditure variances…

Using data gathered from New Jersey school districts for before and after the state's 1975 reform of educational financing, researchers sought to learn how compensating for enrollment changes would affect indicators of per-pupil expenditure inequality. Neither compensated nor uncompensated indicators revealed any impact from the reform. (RW)

Examines distributional implications of a recent Supreme Court of Texas decision mandating a fiscally neutral school finance system. Comparing 1988-89 system's distribution with that of two forms of district power equalization, this article finds that the new alternatives would generate a more equal distribution of expenditures per unit of tax…

Uses statewide school district refinancing in Kansas during the early 1990s to estimate the relationship between per-pupil expenditure and the probability that a student will pursue a postsecondary education. Finds that a 20 percent increase in spending raises probability of going on to postsecondary schooling approximately 5 percent. (PKP)