This study uses a concurrent embedded mixed-methods design to assess the impact of additional funding on student outcomes in a large, urban school district in the Southeastern United States. The district implemented student-based budgeting (SBB), which allocates dollars to schools based on student characteristics using a weighted student funding…

The "Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965" ("ESEA") requires that school districts provide services to higher-poverty, Title I schools, from state and local funds, that are at least comparable to services in lower-poverty, non-Title I schools. The current Title I comparability requirement allows school districts to…

This report examines funding disparities between two seemingly similar schools in Virginia and North Carolina. It finds that the federal, state, and local policies designed to distribute education funds systematically provide more money to higher-income students and wealthier schools. (Contains 5 figures.) [This report was also produced by the…

Two proposals in the bill currently circulating to reauthorize No Child Left Behind seem to be shoe-ins for making their way into federal law. The impetus behind both proposals is to help poor kids by making sure that districts spend as much money on them as gets spent on rich kids. Going against the grain, the National Council on Teacher Quality…

This paper outlines an approach for adjusting state aid for differences in educational costs. The approach focuses on determinants of the variation in the prices of school inputs such as cost of heating fuel, ability of the area to attract teachers, and needs for student transportation. The system attempts to isolate that component of the…

Three part article includes: 1) the case for full state funding; 2) the local school district's role; 3) the case for more federal funding. (Editor)

The many small steps that States seem willing to take now to reduce inequity in school spending may, a decade hence, look remarkably similar to the big jump no State dares to make. Full State funding may then have happened after all. (Author)

The purpose of this paper is to outline some policy options that might be considered by decision-makers in Illinois as they struggle with school finance in adequately funding the public schools, but also bringing about property tax relief. First the report looks at ways of attaining property tax relief through the distributive side by discussing…

Presents a prototype econometric model of current expenditure. Aims at helping legislatures realize how the amount expended by local school districts would respond to different forms of State aid. The model is specified to permit simulation of alternative formulas for distributing general-purpose State aid. The author examines block grants,…

Minnesota's attempt to equalize school spending through state payments to low-expenditure districts succeeded only partially in reducing statewide variation in districts' per-pupil expenditures. To test the effects of the state's 1973 law, and to test a new statistical technique for simultaneous assessment of variability in many factors,…

This study documents the differences in school quality-related measures between high-expenditure and low-expenditure school districts, examines the effects of different per-pupil expenditure levels on school quality-related measures, and uses an administrative model to assess the flow of expenditure level into school quality-related measures. The…

The committee recommends reducing local property taxes by replacing such revenue with a personal income tax, a uniform statewide property tax at a rate of $1 per $100 of true value, less sales tax exemptions, increased corporation taxes, and a number of smaller revenue items. Key provision calls for basic funding of schools by the State. (Editor)

In Robinson V. Cahill, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously affirmed a trial court invalidation of the state's school finance statute on the basis of the "thorough and efficient" education clause of the state constitution. This article reviews this case in detail, its genesis, its legal theories, its constitutional guidelines, and…

Presents a general methodology that may be used by states in the design of municipal overburden provisions for their educational aid programs. (RLV)