While states are often impacted by cost pressures beyond their control, certain state policies can help stabilize school funding from year to year and help school districts maintain stable services during times of declining revenue. This report delves into some of the most pressing conditions contributing to current revenue volatility. It then…

Arizona shifted to using current-year enrollment, instead of prior-year enrollment, as the basis for determining state aid for school districts following the passage of Arizona Education Finance Amendment (AEFA) in 2017. This study examines the short-term effects of AEFA implementation on school inputs--namely, expenditures and district personnel,…

In 2023, 2.5 million high school students participated in dual enrollment -- programs that allow them to take and earn credit for college-level courses. Research shows that dual enrollment leads to better student outcomes, such as higher graduation rates, college enrollment, and credit accumulation. However, access to these programs is…

School finance debates frequently turn on two crucial questions: (1) How much do state and local governments spend on K-12 education?; and (2) How are education dollars distributed across jurisdictions? This focus makes sense because the answers to these questions determine how well states are able to provide an adequate, equal education for all…

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court held in "Carson v. Makin" that Maine violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by excluding religious schools from a private-school-choice program--colloquially known as "town tuitioning"--for students in school districts without public high schools. Writing for the majority,…

Open enrollment is an integral part of state public school choice policies. This datapoint captures state policies addressing student transportation to schools outside of their attendance zone, including the entity responsible and available financial assistance. [View the full "50-State Comparison: Open Enrollment Policies 2022" here:…

This thesis examines the budget reductions of six high and six low poverty school districts in California and Texas during the Great Recession. While recent studies have supported the positive influence of spending on student outcomes, few have looked at what happens when financial shocks constrain budgets. The study blends the National Center for…

When it comes to providing children with a high-quality education, money matters. Research shows that sustained and significant increases in school funding can have a lasting positive impact on student achievement and other outcomes -- especially for students from low-income backgrounds. Yet, the U.S. education system is plagued with persistent…

State aid for special education shapes local decisions about identifying students for special education, the programs and services to which students have access and in which students with disabilities are educated, and how local educators structure and administer their special education programs. The connection between state funding for special…

In the United States, researchers have documented persistent racial disparities in school funding for decades. Drawing on evidence from a recent policy change in Pennsylvania, this article contributes to research on the role of state governments in limiting or expanding racial disparities in K-12 education funding by examining differences in the…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 schools are under immense pressure to meet the diverse needs of students. But policies and practices have not evolved quickly enough to meet those needs -- and as a result, the system continues to fail far too many young people. In "Levers of Change: How State Policies Support District…

This article examines how three relatively recent decisions enacted and upheld by Pennsylvania lawmakers have increased racial disparities in education funding and are helping to explode what Ladson-Billings has termed the educational debt. We find that districts with the highest concentrations of Black and Latinx students are profoundly…

Resource exposure was a key mechanism linking patterns of racial segregation and student outcomes during the Brown v. Board of Education era. Decades later, past progress on school desegregation may have stalled, raising concerns about resource equity and associated student outcomes. Are recent trends in segregation associated with racial…

This report is about the educational borders that have sprung up across America. Some are school district boundaries. They can form an invisible barrier between students and the schools that they might want to attend. Other borders, often aligned with the municipal boundaries of cities, counties, and states, restrict who can teach where, how much…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify an association between student mobility through open enrollment and voter support for school bond proposals. Specifically, we hypothesized that higher percentages of nonresident enrollment in a school district and resident exit from a district would be associated with lower levels of voter support…