Public school districts in the United States borrow over a trillion dollars for their facilities each year from the municipal bond market, yet more than half of these school buildings need significant repair. In this paper, we examine the relationship between a single school district infamous for its infrastructure needs, the School District of…

In this paper, we put forth a framework called Critical School Finance, articulating the framework itself and then applying it to school facilities finance. First, we go back to first principles and discuss what 'critical' denotes, revisiting critical theorist Max Horkheimer's seminal essay 'Traditional vs. Critical Theory.' Second, we offer five…