School districts' racial/ethnic and economic compositions are strongly related to average student achievement. Relationships between districts' demographic compositions and average student growth are much weaker, and many believe growth measures are a more accurate indicator of student learning. We seek to understand if the dissemination of growth…

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…

School districts in the United States often borrow on the municipal bond market to pay for capital projects. Districts serving economically disadvantaged communities tend to receive lower credit ratings and pay higher interest rates. To remedy this problem, 24 states have established credit enhancement programs that promise to repay district debt…

When pension benefits are not directly tied to contributions, some individuals may earn disproportionate returns on their retirement contributions. For instance, individuals who receive relatively larger late-career raises will receive disproportionately greater returns. For teachers, whose salaries are determined by salary schedules set by…

"Outside Money in School Board Elections" documents and analyzes the injection of external funding into local elections. Local school board contests have recently become flashpoints of national donor interest. Some observers see this engagement as a needed boost for complacent school districts while others view it as a threat to local…

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,…

The 2024-2025 AASA Superintendent Salary & Benefits Study marks the thirteenth consecutive edition of this report. The national survey tracked the demographics, salary, benefits, and other elements of the employment agreements of school superintendents throughout the country. This year's study results are based on 2,077 complete responses. The…

State takeover has become a consistent policy prescription for school districts who become financially insolvent and/or have low academic achievement. A look at the state of Michigan's state takeover laws and the case study of Detroit Public Schools (DPS) demonstrates the negative consequences and nuances of the policy to improve academic…

In 2011, the US state of Mississippi mandated its school districts to adopt a sexuality education curriculum. Approximately half of districts chose a more comprehensive abstinence-plus curriculum over an abstinence-only curriculum. To understand this outcome, we conducted a logistic regression analysis of school district curriculum choice among…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether district funding influences the leadership work of school principals. This study explored the role of the elementary principal in four school districts. Two districts were located in communities with an affluent population and the schools had an abundance of fiscal resources; the other two districts…

This article reviews the development of my thesis that the California Supreme Court's Serrano decisions, which began in 1971 and sought to disconnect district school spending with local property taxes, led to the fiscal conditions that caused California voters to embrace Proposition 13 in 1978, which radically undermined the local property tax…

Research on arts education notes the positive impact of arts education on educational outcomes for students, particularly students of color, students in poverty, and students needing additional academic support. Students living in low-income communities receive different educational opportunities than those in high-wealth districts. This disparity…

In 2019, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3 (HB 3) -- an $11.6 billion school finance reform law that dedicated over $6 billion toward investments in education and $5 billion toward replacing school property taxes with state aid. The property tax cut portion of HB 3 is set to expand each year, costing the state more money annually without…

We conduct an online survey experiment in which participants are asked to imagine that they are parents moving to a new metropolitan area. They then choose between the five largest school districts in that area. All participants receive demographic data for each district. In addition, some participants are randomly assigned to receive average…

We present an overview of spending adequacy among individual K-12 school districts in the U.S. Our results are from a new database of over 12,000 public school districts that allows users to compare each district's actual per-pupil spending levels to estimates of adequate spending levels--i.e., spending required to achieve the common goal of…