This article investigates trends in the relative wealth of the richest school districts in the United States between 2000 and 2015. For the purposes of discussion, I focus on the top 1% of districts. I argue that trends in school funding for the richest districts deserve greater attention from education researchers. Districts in the top 1% of the…

Focusing on rural school superintendents in New York State public school districts, this study examined the nexus between their leadership behaviors and the academic achievement levels of students within their districts. The study used a causal-comparative research design, also called an "ex-post facto design" (Isaac & Michael,…

Every school district in New York spends more per student than the national average. Yet, there are variations among districts -- largely depending on communities' relative wealth to help fund their school district. State aid attempts to equalize local wealth capacity among districts, which is evident by the fact that more than 72 percent of the…

Long before closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Pennsylvania schools faced a different health crisis: unsafe facilities. Crumbling buildings, asbestos, lead, and other school facility health and safety risks plague many schools across Pennsylvania, particularly in low-income districts and those that enroll a high percentage of Black and…

The increased demand for educational reform and accountability has resulted in a renewed focus on the relationship between building leaders and district leaders, particularly on how district leaders can support principals to ensure the academic success of students. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT) legislations…

Simulates effects of regional, nonresidential, expanded tax-base (ETB) school-finance approaches on measures of student and taxpayer equity for New York State. ETB plans are regressive, as they fail to decrease the variation in tax burden across districts, allowing high-wealth districts lower relative tax burdens. (23 references) (MLH)

The Texas experience with county education districts demonstrates that regional school taxing units can increase equity without new state money, eliminate the high-wealth advantage without forced consolidation, generate "state aid," support other state policies, set rate and expenditure limits, and establish an equal, uniform property…

The advent of universal accountability has provided the opportunity to evaluate the progress of students who have had programs to address limited English proficiency. As part of the New York statewide assessment system, students are identified as belonging to these categories: (1) never having been identified as limited English proficient (LEP);…

A study of the impact of student-teacher ratio on student learning in New York State examines results on statewide assessment instruments across the rural-urban continuum. Data were analyzed for 614 of New York's 760 school districts and included various indicators of district wealth; urban, suburban, town, or rural location; local poverty; rate…

The pattern of federal funding allocated through Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was examined for all New York State public schools. The program is widely distributed, with a majority of all schools receiving Title I funding. Some poor schools, especially in urban areas, may be unable to qualify because of this spreading out…

This paper establishes the importance of examining resource-allocation behavior at microlevels of educational systems and reports on the progress being made in New York to develop and examine a set of relevant indicators. The paper presents findings that were part of a multistate effort conducted by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education…

Uses data from New York State's Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) to examine the interaction of rural school district size and wealth factors with BOCES size and wealth as they relate to expenditure levels for service provision. Findings suggest that opportunities available to districts through regional educational service agencies…

A proposal in the New York State Assembly in 2000 considered eliminating Tax Equalization Aid to school districts in order to fund the elimination of aid caps, called Transition Adjustment. In response to that proposal, this report examines the equalizing or disequalizing effects of three types of New York state aid to school…

The 2003 New York State Court of Appeals ruling in the "Campaign for Fiscal Equity" ("CFE") case has created a historic opportunity to reform New York City's troubled schools. This opening was created because the court not only required changing the state aid formula to ensure a "sound basic education" for all New…