This study examined the current costs of preschool education in Scotland. Eleven preschool centers were studied in order to facilitate identification of key issues and to assist in designing the main questionnaire. Study findings indicated that main issues were the extent of between-center differences, information availability, and the use of…

Findings of a study that investigated the feasibility of educational vouchers for California education and their budgetary impact are presented in this paper. In a survey of 300 parents in the Los Angeles Unifies School District with children under the age of 16 who do or will attend public schools, 52 percent said that they would use a $2,600…

State and local government spending on public elementary and secondary education grew from $40.7 billion in 1970 to an estimated $256.3 billion in 1996, a more than 6-fold increase in 25 years. Even when adjusted for inflation and changes in enrollment, real per-pupil spending still increased 86 percent. This brief examines some of the underlying…

The equity of public school funding in Illinois is investigated in this report. A longitudinal, cartographic methodology examines the county as the unit of analysis for the school years 1972-73 through 1990-91. Findings indicate that Illinois school districts are currently more unequal than when the state equalization aid formula state was adopted…

This bulletin provides an overview of the ways in which school districts and schools are making learning a priority in schools despite scarce resources. it describes how districts and schools make use of resources, instructional strategies, and policies to overcome the barriers caused by tight budgets. Examples from Oregon schools are provided.…

This brief discusses issues of school finance equity as they relate to resources and services provided to special education students. It uses information obtained from a recent study of Chapter 1, which examined educational resources and expenditures in 95 elementary schools in 30 school districts across 5 states. The schools had students with…

Given the overall annual expenditure of approximately $250 billion on public education in the United States, there is great interest in how these dollars are allocated to states. This brief presents data showing the relationship between access to public-education resources and community wealth across all school districts in the United States for…

The New Jersey State government could reduce pupil transportation aid payments to local school districts by between $35 million and $50 million by eliminating support for questionable expenditures and by using the funding formula adopted in the Quality Education Act of 1990. This report describes how these dollar savings can be achieved. The major…

This policy brief presents findings from Southwest Educational Development Laboratory research on resource allocation in 1,504 independent school districts in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas. Using 5 years' data from the federal Common Core of Data and the Census Bureau along with 3 years of student performance data from each state…

This document consists of the six issues of the "Abbott Bulletin" published during 1998. The "Abbott Bulletin" is a one-page per issue newsletter that reports on developments in response to a set of rulings by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the Abbott v. Burke case. In its fifth ruling in the Abbott case in May 1998, the Court…

Public Law 99-457, the Education of the Handicapped Amendments of 1986, reauthorizes the discretionary programs of the Education of the Handicapped Act, provides incentives to states to serve an estimated additional 70,000 handicapped 3- to 6-year-olds and creates a new discretionary program to address the special needs of handicapped infants and…

Two Oregon schools districts that have been effective in managing their resources are Reedsport, a smaller district and the subject of part 1 of this bulletin; and Beaverton, one of the largest districts in the state, the focus of part 2. The Reedsport district plans the use of its funds based on a goal-setting process in the areas of instruction,…

In the 1989 "Edgewood vs. Kirby" decision, the Supreme Court of Texas ordered the Legislature to correct the inequality in funding between the state's richest and poorest school districts. In response to the court's order, the Legislature recently enacted Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) intended to provide Texas' school districts with equal access…