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…

The State Indicators Database (SID), which is the School Finance Indicators Database's (SFID) primary product, includes approximately 125 variables, but this report focuses on three key school finance measures: fiscal effort, adequacy, and progressivity. This report discusses how states' systems tend to mediate the impact of economic downturns and…

Facing legal challenges and public pressures, Connecticut needs an objective and rigorous study of its public education costs. This study is the first to estimate the cost function of Connecticut public K-12 education and to evaluate the equity and the adequacy in the state's school spending based on regression-estimated education costs. It finds…

California's K-12 school facilities require significant new and ongoing investments. Funding for facilities comes mostly from local sources, and depends crucially on local property wealth. The state provides some funding for facilities through the School Facility Program (SFP), which usually requires local matching contributions. The authors begin…

This document contains the technical appendices for the report "Equitable State Funding for School Facilities: Assessing California's School Facility Program." Appendices include: (1) Data Sources; and (2) Supplemental Tables and Figures. [The authors received research support from Joseph Herrera. For the full report, see ED617949. For…

This brief assesses trends in access to, enrollment in, and success in Advanced Placement (AP) coursework in relation to school district poverty, racial composition, and urbanicity. It uses data merged from the 2011-2012 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), the 2012 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE), and the 2010 Decennial U.S.…

This study seeks to understand how district size and wealth factors influence the adoption of open-source online systems in primary and secondary (K-12) education. Most schools now utilise online systems (e.g. CMS, LMS, SIS) for a number of purposes, and it is anticipated that no-cost and open-source systems could be of great value for…

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…

This study investigated the relationship of size, wealth, and district type to athletic success and found that wealth and size were important predictors of athletic performance. The relationship of these variables to performance was anticipated in a theory of differentiation propounded by Blau and Schoenerr (1971). The authors theorized that…

This report uses data from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study (PEELS) to describe access for young children with disabilities in two specific domains: community activities, including extracurricular activities and family recreation, and kindergarten classroom experiences. While PEELS is a broad, descriptive study, the analyses…

The study was designed to provide information on Hispanic administrators in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The data was obtained from Kentucky school Superintendents or their designees in 175 public school districts. The Hispanic survey contained six questions. The survey was mailed to Kentucky Superintendents on April 21, 2008. A follow-up survey…

Data-driven decision making has become part of the lexicon for educational reform efforts. Supported by the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, the use of data to inform educational decisions has become a common-place practice across the country. Using an online survey administered to central office data leaders in all Virginia public school…

Summarizes the perceptions of Virginia school officials regarding media coverage and analyzes newspaper coverage of school district budgeting processes. Questionnaire responses from 72 (54%) school board chairmen and 80 (60%) board of supervisors chairmen reveal that newspapers are the most important method of transmitting information from school…

The fear of violence among students and teachers is straining the learning environment in many schools. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated school district characteristics in relation to the level of principals' expressed needs for school-violence prevention programs. The district characteristics included finance, size,…

This paper was commissioned at the request of Kentucky's governor, who wished to ascertain whether state educational costs could be reduced by consolidating small school districts. The issue arises in the context of Kentucky's ongoing efforts to implement the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 in the face of increasing state fiscal constraints.…