Author: David G. Smith

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13:

Problem . This study addresses the willingness of citizens of a rural/suburban school district in the northern Kansas City metropolitan area to provide the financial support necessary to foster a quality education for all students. The school district presented one school bond proposal and four school levy proposals to the citizens of the district for facility improvements, salary increases, and technology advancements during the period of November, 1996 to August, 1997. The November bond proposal was successful. All four levy issues were defeated. The purposes of this study were to identify predictive characteristics of (1) registered voters who voted or did not vote in selected school financial elections between November, 1996 and August, 1997, (2) registered voters who voted "yes" and those who voted "no" in these selected financial proposals, and (3) to analyze the relationship between socioeconomic and attitudinal variables concerning the voters and non-voters in these school financial elections. Another purpose of the study was to validate the evolving theory of voter behavior which posits that voter participation in school financial elections and favorable and unfavorable voter responses to the financial proposals can be attributed to socioeconomic characteristics, attitudinal dispositions, a neighborhood effect, or some combination of these factors. Method . Registered voters in the Excelsior Springs School District No. 40 (Missouri) were the selected population for this study. The statistical sample for the study consisted of all the registered voters who voted in the November 5, 1996, bond and levy elections, and 25% of the non-voters residing in each of the nine election precincts of the school district at that time. The survey instrument used in the study contained 36 socioeconomic and attitudinal items. Chi-square tests for independence and discriminant function analysis were applied to the data collected on the variables in the survey instrument. Results . Certain socioeconomic and attitudinal variables demonstrated high overall predictive power in voting behavior of selected school financial elections. When considering citizens who voted and citizens who did not vote the only variable that was of high predictive power was MATE Factor III--Administrative and Program Effectiveness. The predictor power variables increased when investigating the "yes" or "no" responses of voters in the selected financial elections of the study. Variables of high predictive power were home ownership, MATE Factor I--Teacher-Related Issues, and MATE Factor II--Organizational Efficiency. Significant among the findings was the conceptual and comparison studies from almost three decades of prior research, and the present study verifying that socioeconomic and attitudinal variables are important in determining if citizens will vote and how they will vote in school financial elections.