Education ensures that children from all backgrounds have equal opportunities to succeed. Yet, the education provided for many K-12 students in the state of Texas may not be equal due to the allocation of school funds under House Bill 3 (H.B. 3). To date, the Revenue to Population (RTP) Index and other normalized statistical metrics have not been…

Targeted school funding is a potentially valuable policy lever to increase educational equality by race, ethnicity, and income, but it remains unclear how to target funds most effectively. We use a regression discontinuity approach to compare districts that narrowly passed or failed a school funding election. We use close tax elections in 9 states…

As state school-based accountability systems have become more complex and increasingly comprehensive, school district leaders have struggled with the balance of managing limited school district funding while focusing on improving student academic achievement as quantified by state-mandated testing results. The amount of a school district's…

States and districts allocate hundreds of billions of dollars annually to fund K-12 schools, and this allocation is largely driven by one calculation: how states count student enrollment. They do this in one of five ways: (1) A single count on a single day; (2) Two counts twice per year; (3) Multiple counts over a period of time; (4) An attendance…

We leverage an obscure set of rules in Texas's school funding formula granting some districts additional revenue as a function of size and sparsity. We use variation from kinks and discontinuities in this formula to ask how districts spend additional discretionary funds, and whether these improve student outcomes. A $1,000 annual increase in…

California policymakers have established the expectation that all public school students should have access to a broad course of study, in classes where instruction is consistent with the state's content standards. Further, the state holds schools and school districts accountable for their ability to ensure that all students achieve at a specified…

Funding public schools has been an ongoing struggle since the inception of the United States. Beginning with Jefferson's "A General Diffusion of Knowledge" that charged the states with properly funding public schools, to the current day legal battles that continue in states across the Union, America struggles with finding a solution to…

In the postbellum southern U.S., African Americans were steadily disenfranchised, a modern publicly financed universal school system with racially segregated schools was created, and public school monies were allocated so that white pupils received substantially more than black pupils. An earlier paper (Ng and Halcoussis 2003) established a…

This article presents the state education finance and governance profile of Texas. In 1854, the Permanent School Fund (PSF) was established by a legislative appropriation of $2 million. Today, the PSF has an approximate balance of $25 billion and continues to receive revenue from state taxes on land and minerals. The State Board of Education…

Maintains that the disparities in funding for art programs affect schools with minority students more than Anglo schools. Presents the results from a study of three Texas school districts in order to investigate the inequality in funding for secondary art programs. Offers ideas for supplemental funding and addresses funding equity. (CMK)

This lengthy article traces the historical development of Texas state aid and the state's school finance system, notes current revenue sources, describes the formulas and indexes now used to determine state aid, discusses district reorganization and consolidation, analyzes teacher salaries, and suggests reforms to improve the current finance…

Research has indicated that the quality and quantity of programs offered through special education are dictated by available funding rather than the needs of the handicapped students. To fill the lack of information on the amount of local funding made available for special education programming, on-site visits to interview special education…

The objective of this biennial enrollment audit is to determine that Texas' community and technical colleges are in compliance with the Coordinating Board rules and regulations, the general provisions of the General Appropriations Act, and the provisions of the Texas Education Code for the purpose of receiving state appropriations. Compliance is…

On October 2, 1989, the Texas Supreme Court, in the "Edgewood v. Kirby" decision, found the current school-finance system unconstitutional. The evolution of this decision, through its early origins, the establishment of the current structure (1949-81), House Bill 72 (1984), and Senate Bill 1019 (1989), is described. Also described are…

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys the changing landscape in education finance by commissioning papers from members of the school finance research community. Papers that address the questions of the current and future financial condition for school districts are presented here. The papers, which are intended to promote the…