In 2009, the "East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic" alleged that Arizona's individual income tax-credit scholarship program disproportionately serves privileged students from higher-income families over those from lower-income backgrounds. Yet neither paper collected the student-level, scholarship recipient family income data…

The Wilder-Naifeh Technical Skills Grant, introduced in Winter 2004, grants awards of up to $2,000 to students who attend one of the 27 Tennessee Technology Centers. Since the inception of this program, approximately 50,000 students have received grants, and the state of Tennessee has spent roughly $47.5 million on the program over the last four…

New Jersey is considering a tax reform called "Cap 2.5," under which a municipality's tax levy on existing property could not grow more than 2.5 percent in any year, unless its voters pass a referendum allowing a greater increase. This reform is similar to Massachusetts's Proposition 2.5, which that state adopted in 1980. New Jersey…

Several New England states have been rethinking the system whereby small towns make the key decisions about school budgets and staffing under the banner of local control. Maine already has mandated a reduction in the number of local school districts from 290 to 80, allowing localities to vote on the larger districts. This consolidation, unpopular…

This study examines the relationship between educational effectiveness, as measured by the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), and funding of school districts based on socioeconomic classification. Results indicate there is a strong relationship between performance in HSPA, socioeconomic classification, and the different sources…

The Indiana General Assembly increased the state grant funds for full-day kindergarten from $8.5 million for 2006/07 to $33.5 million for 2007/08. Following the increase in funding, the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Board of Education requested assistance from Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest to analyze Indiana…

This publication provides instructions for completing the State of Arizona's Consolidated State Application Accountability Workbook. The first part provides an overview of States' implementation of the critical elements required for approval of their State accountability systems. The second part presents the state's response and activities for…

Each year, the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs (NASSGAP) completes a survey regarding state-funded expenditures for postsecondary student financial aid. This report, the 40th annual survey, represents data from academic year 2008-09. Data highlights of this survey include: (1) In the 2008-2009 academic year, the states…

Maryland's governor, Martin J. O'Malley, didn't get much of his legislative agenda through the General Assembly this year, but he did succeed on one front: preserving enough state aid for the public-university system to stave off a tuition increase for the fourth consecutive year. Like politicians in several states, Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, made…

California entered 2010-11 with a longstanding imbalance between ongoing spending and income. To help close that gap, state policymakers suspended Proposition 98, the minimum funding guarantee for K-12 schools and community colleges. In total, revenues for K-12 schools are down nearly 10% this year compared with 2007-08. Yet more cuts loom as the…

Low-income children tend to be concentrated in low-income school districts, and these children often attend schools that receive far fewer resources per pupil despite their greater need. Since education is primarily a state responsibility, more than 90 percent of school funding comes from state and local sources, and the federal government…

Reforming the way a state distributes its funding to local school districts is clearly a challenging task. This paper presents the Rhode Island story on school funding reform. First, the paper begins with a short history of Rhode Island's school finance system and the key factors that called for school funding reform. Second, the paper discusses…

Expanding economic opportunity in Texas depends on our state's ability to increase the college graduation rate for the thousands of college freshmen arriving on campuses each year. The pending budget bills would hamper college access for thousands of Texans through severe cuts to successful financial aid programs, including TEXAS Grants (Towards…

Background: There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of autism in the USA in the past few decades. The purpose of this study was to provide recent estimates of psychotropic drug use and costs among individuals with autism enrolled in the Medicaid programme. Method: A cross-sectional analysis of 2007 Mississippi (MS) Medicaid…

"Why Rural Matters 2013-14" is the seventh in a series of biennial reports analyzing the contexts and conditions of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the need for policymakers to address rural education issues in their respective states. While it is the seventh in a series, this report is not simply an…