When it comes to education, not all spending is equal. Some education dollars are spent more productively than others. In a time of lagging revenues and flat achievement in many districts, policymakers have increasingly started to pay greater attention to the question of whether education systems are getting the most out of every education dollar.…

High-poverty schools in rural areas and small towns are under attack from state policy makers who want to consolidate these schools in order to save money. In addition to calls for consolidation, rural schools also are threatened by unfair and inadequate funding formulas.

Declining enrollments in the seven elementary schools in the district caused a decrease in the number of classrooms per building and an unequal distribution of pupils with class sizes ranging from 13 to 32 students per classroom. Smaller classes and fewer teachers restricted the grouping of pupils for multilevel reading and mathematics…

Analyzes the debate over closure of a rural Pennsylvania high school and consolidation with a much larger school in the state's geographically largest school district. Discusses parent survey results, which highlight the enduring social tension between the centralizing efforts of governing bodies and the interests of local communities in…

PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE BEEN ORGANIZED IN DIFFERENT WAYS, BOTH WITHIN THE STATES AND FROM STATE TO STATE. IN SOME CASES SCHOOL DISTRICT STRUCTURE IS COTERMINOUS WITH LOCAL GOVERNMENTAL UNITS AND IS "DEPENDENT" ON THEM. HOWEVER, 78 PERCENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL ENROLLMENTS ARE IN "INDEPENDENT" SCHOOL DISTRICTS…

Busing, or transporting students at public expense, has been practiced in the United States for over a century. The use of the term to mean transporting students for school desegregation purposes has been relatively recent. Most States started providing pupil transportation when legislation for school district consolidation was implemented,…

The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, School District reorganized in the fall of 1970 to attain, among other things, racial balancing in all of its schools. Changes in policy and practice were comprehensive. The district adopted the 10 goals of quality education, developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, as the basis for program planning and…