Recent evidence suggests school resources are continually segregated from minoritized communities. This funding disparity impacts students' long-term outcomes in school and in their community. Political discourse has prioritized school defunding, privatization through vouchers and related policies, and tax relief and at the same time greater…

This brief is part of Education Law Center's "Tracking State Aid Cuts in the Pandemic" series. In June 2020, amid the economic crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Georgia Legislature enacted a 10% cut in state aid for K-12 public education totaling $950 million. The cut applied equally to all school districts, without regard…

For years Georgia's HOPE Scholarship program provided full tuition scholarships to high-achieving students. State budgetary shortfalls reduced its generosity in 2011. Under the new rules, only students meeting more rigorous merit-based criteria would retain the original scholarship covering full tuition, now called the Zell Miller Scholarship,…

Becoming HOPEless in the 2-year sector addresses the question: "what happens when a state-wide policy removes merit-based financial aid from low-income students making satisfactory academic progress?" To assess the magnitude of this HOPEless effect, we compared credits attempted, attained, and persistence and graduation indicators of…

On February 24, 2017, all of the authors of the state-of-the-state manuscripts published in the "Journal of Education Finance" met in Cincinnati, Ohio, to participate in a roundtable discussion focused on recent legislative actions in 38 states. A majority of those papers were revised to reflect a final report on legislative actions…

In every state in the South, the percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees or higher who were born outside the state exceed the percentage born in-state, reflecting their dependence on imported talent over building their own talent-development systems. In Virginia, the Southern state with the highest percentage of residents with a B.A. or…

For nearly four years, governors and state legislators have focused on little else in higher education but cutting budgets to deal with historic gaps in revenue. Now, with higher-education support at a 25-year low, lawmakers are considering some policy changes that have been off-limits in the past, such as consolidating campuses and eliminating…

"The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (PL 107-110) established the Reading First Program (Title I, Part B, Subpart 1), a major federal initiative designed to help ensure that all children can read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Reading First (RF) builds upon research indicating that effective reading instruction on…

The purpose of the mixed-method Delphi study is to identify the financial leadership competencies considered most important in operating public higher education institutions. The current study also determined whether differences existed in the perceptions of participants' age, level of education, years of service as a president, the number of…

How have states responded to the recent budget crisis (last few years to current day) in the area of education policy? In other words, what types of education policies (or programs or state statutes) have been changed or modified in efforts to save money (for example, raising class-size minimums, shortening the school week, furloughs of staff,…

Since the nation plunged into economic turmoil, a handful of states have scaled back pay bonuses and subsidies for teachers who earn certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). But factors other than the economy have also played into the cuts, too. Officials in Georgia, for instance, contend that the state…

In the 1990s, teachers' and other educators' salaries increased enough to make Georgia number one in salaries in the South and solidly in the Midwest across the nation. Since 2004, school districts have been trying to make do with much less as this recession continues to force more cuts. Georgia has a very high unemployment rate of 10.25%, a high…

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) follows education budgets and legislation during regular and special legislative sessions, from governors' proposals through final legislative actions in the 16 SREB states. This report includes legislative Web site addresses and descriptions, by state, of gubernatorial budgetary requests and proposals…

This document presents Governors' legislative and budget proposals in Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, plus notes from other SREB states.

Almost every day, it seems, school districts coping with budget shortfalls are announcing freezes or cuts to administrative salaries and benefits as part of the solution, a trend that began during the past school year and is becoming more prevalent around the country. Salaries, which account for more than 70 percent of some school budgets, have…