School Funding and Student Achievement
School Funding and Student Achievement

Author: Andy Spears

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 83

ISBN-13: 3319103172

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This Brief explores school funding reform in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1990, Kentucky passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act designed to overhaul that state’s education system. Two years later, Tennessee passed the Education Improvement Act which included the Basic Education Plan, designed to foster equity in funding among the state’s schools. Initiated as a result of lawsuits against the states’ educational systems, both programs dealt with school funding, specifically funding equalization among districts. This Brief examines the environments that precipitated funding reform in each state as well as the outcomes of the reforms on student achievement. The similarities and differences between the approaches in each state are analyzed and compared to related reform programs in other states. An in-depth study of regional educational reform in the United States, this Brief is of use to public policy scholars as well as education policy consultants and other school system or state education leaders.

Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses
Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses

Author: Eric A. Hanushek

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-04-27

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1400830257

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Improving public schools through performance-based funding Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public-school funding, the United States now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. Yet American students still achieve less than their foreign counterparts, their performance has been flat for decades, millions of them are failing, and poor and minority students remain far behind their more advantaged peers. In this book, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth trace the history of reform efforts and conclude that the principal focus of both courts and legislatures on ever-increasing funding has done little to improve student achievement. Instead, Hanushek and Lindseth propose a new approach: a performance-based system that directly links funding to success in raising student achievement. This system would empower and motivate educators to make better, more cost-effective decisions about how to run their schools, ultimately leading to improved student performance. Hanushek and Lindseth have been important participants in the school funding debate for three decades. Here, they draw on their experience, as well as the best available research and data, to show why improving schools will require overhauling the way financing, incentives, and accountability work in public education.

Charter School Funding Considerations
Charter School Funding Considerations

Author: Christine Rienstra Kiracofe

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2022-01-01

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1648028357

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Much has been written about how public schools in the United States are funded. However, missing in the current literature landscape is a nuanced discussion of funding as it relates to public charter schools. This text, authored by researchers and professionals working in the charter school world, provides readers with a comprehensive overview of issues related to the funding and operation of charter schools. The book opens with an introduction to charter schools and how they are funded. The financial management and oversight of charter schools and issues related to funding equity, including how charter schools impact district school finances, are addressed. Special considerations for charter schools related to serving special education students and transportation issues are also addressed. After reading this book, readers will have a thorough understanding of how charter schools are funded and managed financially.

Does Money Matter?
Does Money Matter?

Author: Gary Burtless

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780815707134

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Many believe that American education can only be improved with a sizable infusion of new resources into the nation's schools. Others find little evidence that large increases in spending lead to improvements in educational performance. Do additional school resources actually make any difference? The evidence on this question offers a striking paradox. Many analysts have found that extra school resources play a negligible role in improving student achievement while children are in school. Yet many economists have gathered data showing that students who attend well-endowed schools grow up to enjoy better job market success than children whose education takes place in schools where resources are limited. For example, children who attend schools with a lower pupil-teacher ratio and a better educated teaching staff appear to earn higher wages as adults than children who attend poorer schools. This book, which grew out of a Brookings conference, brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss the evidence on the link between school resources and educational and economic outcomes. In a lively exchange of views, they debate whether additional spending can improve the performance of the nation's schools. In addition to editor Gary Burtless, the contributors include Eric Hanushek, University of Rochester; James Heckman, University of Chicago; Julian Betts, University of California, San Diego; Richard Murnane, Harvard University; Larry Hedges, University of Chicago; and Christopher Jencks, Northwestern University. Dialogues on Public Policy

The Money Myth
The Money Myth

Author: W. Norton Grubb

Publisher:

Published: 2009-01-15

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13:

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Money can buy simple resources such as higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes, but these resources are actually some of the weakest predictors of educational outcomes. On the other hand, complex resources pertaining to school practices are astonishingly strong predictors of success. The author finds that tracking policies have the most profound and consistent impact on student outcomes over time. Schools often relegate low performing students, particularly minorities, to vocational, remedial, and special education tracks. So even in well funded schools, resources may never reach the students who need them most. He also finds that innovation in the classroom has a critical impact on student success. Here, too, America's schools are stratified.

The Thief in the Classroom
The Thief in the Classroom

Author: Jeff Swensson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-04-01

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1475860293

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An undetected thief lurks in America’s classrooms: funding for public education. Dynamic instruction, robust learning, and student futures are stolen when funding for public education is inadequate and inequitable. The devastating impact of this thievery is examined throughout this book. Student engagement with the potential and promise of traditional public education is stolen by funding formulas crafted by state legislatures. Theft in the classroom results when these funding schemes misdirect and disconnect the resources required to educate all US students. Called upon to deal with an ever-changing cascade of mandates, standards, legislation, and counterproductive testing marathons, but provided with funding so inadequate that instruction is often little better than anemic “test prep,” public educators in pursuit of the common good are robbed by insufficient funding. Although funding for public education is a topic unlikely to command frequent public discussion, no topic is more consequential for achievement, adequacy, and social justice in the learning, lives, and futures of America’s children and young people.

Making Money Matter
Making Money Matter

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1999-12-30

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0309065283

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The United States annually spends over $300 billion on public elementary and secondary education. As the nation enters the 21st century, it faces a major challenge: how best to tie this financial investment to the goal of high levels of achievement for all students. In addition, policymakers want assurance that education dollars are being raised and used in the most efficient and effective possible ways. The book covers such topics as: Legal and legislative efforts to reduce spending and achievement gaps. The shift from "equity" to "adequacy" as a new standard for determining fairness in education spending. The debate and the evidence over the productivity of American schools. Strategies for using school finance in support of broader reforms aimed at raising student achievement. This book contains a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of financing public schools by federal, state, and local governments in the United States. It distills the best available knowledge about the fairness and productivity of expenditures on education and assesses options for changing the finance system.

Equalize Student Achievement
Equalize Student Achievement

Author: Ovid K. Wong

Publisher: R&L Education

Published: 2010-03-15

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 160709147X

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The challenge of proper school finance goes beyond having a balanced budget to finding strategies that maximize money to improve schools and equalize student achievement. School finance deals with how money works to support school operations and answer rigorous accountability such as the No Child Left Behind mandate. This book paints a comprehensive picture of school finance to illuminate issues with the current system and suggest ways to improve that system.