Despite growing concerns about the harmful effects of "hardening" schools through increased police and surveillance on school campuses, little research has examined trends in financial resources allocated to these programs, practices, and personnel. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing trends and patterns in school…

Although considerable education research has focused on how K-12 school districts spend money, no extant literature has specifically examined how these districts invested in online endeavors, most notably website traffic cost. As the Internet and school district websites have become a crucial source of information for many educational…

School finance court cases have proceeded one or more times in all but two states. Plaintiffs ask the courts to rule that the existing funding formula is unconstitutional under state constitutions, and the defendants call for continuation of the existing finance formula. By compiling and analyzing the universe of such cases, we can accurately…

We analyze a natural experiment in which policymakers in Pennsylvania first implemented, and later removed, reimbursements to districts for students exiting to brick and mortar and cyber charter schools. Generalized difference-in-difference models show that larger shares of students enrolling in charter schools predict decrements in spending,…

A state's special education funding structure affects both the level of special education services provided and how equitably these services are distributed across districts. Irrespective of the funding system, districts in almost all states use unrestricted funds to pay for special education services not covered by revenue designated for special…

The impact of school resources on student outcomes was first raised in the 1960s and has been controversial since then. This issue enters into the decision making on school finance in both legislatures and the courts. The historical research found little consistent or systematic relationship of spending and achievement, but this research…

Recent causal evidence connects levels of per pupil spending and short- and long-term student outcomes. This evidence further suggests that specific types of spending may mediate the relationship between expenditures and student outcomes. Yet race remains related to funding disparities and schooling experiences in ways that raise concerns about…

Like other states, Michigan has implemented a number of policies to change governance and administrative arrangements in local school districts deem to be in financial emergency. This paper examines two questions: (1) Which districts get into financial trouble and why?; and (2) Among fiscally distressed districts, are there significant differences…

California's school funding system has changed in several very significant ways since the original "District Dollars" report (Loeb, Grissom, and Strunk 2007), so the purpose of this report is to update that analysis and to track the evolution of district finances over the intervening 12 years, as well as to consider a few other issues…

We consider issues of equality and efficiency in two different school funding systems--a state-level system in Michigan and a foundation system in Ohio. Unlike Ohio, the Michigan system restricts districts from generating property or income tax revenue to fund operating expenditures. In both states, districts fund capital expenditures with local…

In response to a challenging state economy, the Texas Legislature implemented the Regular Program Adjustment Factor (RPAF) in 2011, effectively reducing state funding to all Texas school districts. This mixed methods study reveals the effect of the RPAF on a sample of the smallest Texas school districts and their response to decreased state…

This "First Look" contains national and state totals of revenues and expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for school year 2013-14. This "First Look" includes revenues by source and expenditures by function and object, including current expenditures per pupil and instructional expenditures per pupil. This…

The purpose of this article was to present the results of a study that analyzed Pennsylvania local school boards' taxing authority, pre- and post-enactment of Special Session Act 1, "The Taxpayer Relief Act," in 2006, in terms of its percent share of school districts' total budget in order to better understand the impact of the new…

The paper examines the extent to which sub-national public officials are efficient in delivering basic education services and argues that technical inefficiencies, especially in the management of public funds for education, could potentially contribute to poor education service delivery in South Africa. A conceptual framework is proposed to show…

Evidence on the effectiveness of school inputs remains inconclusive, partly due to the challenge of identification as families sort themselves into school districts and resources are potentially allocated to compensate (or reinforce) differences in pupil abilities. Using variation in school resources induced by the location of waterfalls in…