The accountability era has produced school grading systems that purport to evaluate school effectiveness yet utilize hegemonic formulas that label low-scoring schools and neighborhoods, depriving them of incentive monies tied to their school grades. This quantitative study analyzed the publicly available data of 106 elementary schools in one large…

In the United States, K-12 school finance is largely controlled by the states. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds are distributed based on 51 different configurations of formulas, rules, and regulations to over 13,000 districts that vary in terms of the students they serve, their ability to raise revenue locally, and many…

Background: Increasingly, there are calls for educational equity to explicitly include LGBTQ+ students, including the creation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) clubs, or Genders and Sexualities Alliances (GSAs), which are associated with positive outcomes for LGBTQ+ students and promote a safer school climate…

The Office of Support and Accountability conducted an unannounced special circumstance review of Logan County Schools, commencing September 15, 2022, to investigate official complaints regarding board governance and central office leadership submitted to the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE), in addition to documentation submitted to…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the intersection of social class inequality and education policy through the lens of an analysis of the experiences and effects of state, local, and federal policy meant to engage communities around the use of federal funds to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students. The author intends to…

In 2013, California enacted an ambitious school funding reform--the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The LCFF fundamentally overhauled the state's prior K-12 education finance system, which studies found to be inequitable, irrational, and highly centralized. More than a decade after its enactment, a growing body of research indicates the LCFF…

State school finance formula cause funding inadequacy, allocative inefficiency, and educational resource equity gaps. Legislative and court-ordered remedies have failed to solve the disparities among schools and districts. This book's ground-breaking innovation shows how to shift the public education finance paradigm to fund K-12 public education…

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic (COVID-19), Congress passed three relief acts within a 1-year period that provided more than $276 billion for an Education Stabilization Fund to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-19, including $5.5 billion for the Emergency Assistance to Nonpublic Schools (EANS) program. The purpose…

Governments vary greatly in the way they decide the level of funding for public primary schools, although typically it involves using a combination of rule-based and discretionary criteria. They also tend to place restrictions on how funding is used by earmarking it for particular categories of expenditure. This practice is not universal, however,…

This report explains how the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) Act came to be and offers promising practices and lessons other states may adapt to their political and economic contexts. Through in-depth interviews with advocates and state leaders, the authors uncovered five factors that contributed to TISA's passage that have…

In an effort to improve learning for young children and respond to preschool fade out, some districts are working on "PreK-3" initiatives to create better connected learning pathways for children. In these pathways, primary grades continue to build on what children learn in preschool; they also present potential implementation challenges…

School finance formulas vary from state to state, impacting school district educational outcomes. Rural school districts are especially affected due to inherent challenges in producing high student achievement scores. This study examined whether variables including socioeconomic status and per-pupil local tax level impacted student achievement…

School finance court cases have proceeded one or more times in all but two states. Plaintiffs ask the courts to rule that the existing funding formula is unconstitutional under state constitutions, and the defendants call for continuation of the existing finance formula. By compiling and analyzing the universe of such cases, we can accurately…

In 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dramatically overhauled its K-12 education system and created a new school finance formula, building an educational accountability structure to ensure every child has access to a high-quality education. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) established academic standards in core subjects, mandated…

As England attempts to close educational attainment gaps faced by socioeconomically disadvantaged children using Pupil Premium funding, no attention is given to how different types of academies do so, nor to policy transfer's role in informing policies for disadvantaged pupils. Employing a qualitative comparative case study methodology with…