The U.S. Constitution is the most well-known governing document in the country--studied by students, endlessly interpreted and reinterpreted by judges and political pundits, and placed in the category of near-religious reverence by many Americans. In the last 50 years it has been amended exactly once, in a ratification process that took over 200…

Education issues are poised to break through the din of presidential politics and economic anxiety in more than a dozen states next month, as voters confront ballot questions and constitutional amendments involving K-12 policy and school finance. High on the list are gambling referendums in six states--Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Maryland,…

In November 1972, electorates in California, Colorado, Michigan, and Oregon decisively rejected consitutional amendments that (according to their supporters) would have reduced or eliminated reliance on the property tax as a means of financing education. School finance reformers were perplexed by these defeats. This study sets out to explain the…

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the issue of statewide tax and expenditure limitations (TELs). Through the use of public opinion surveys and case studies of the campaigns, the author explains the politics of the TEL issue. Chapter 1 uses a multivariate analysis to determine whether or not differences exist in the voting…

Cross-sectional analysis of 1971-1972 budget elections and expenditure data in 111 large K-12 school districts in Oregon indicates that the "agenda control" and "fiscal illusion" models predict expenditure levels better than the standard "median voter" model. The median voter model assumes that district expenditures…

The school spending model described in this report involves institutions and information based on the following reasoning. Where education spending must be approved by referenda, the school board seeks to obtain as large a budget as possible. Voters have to approve the budget proposal or accept the "reversion" level of spending--that…

The recent marked increase in voter-taxpayer rejection of school budget and school bond issues at polls across the United States -- a phenomenon popularly called the "taxpayers' revolt" -- has given rise to the widespread claim that public school finance is in a state of crisis. This paper develops a simplified model of a political…

This paper describes the development of school finance reform in Oregon from 1968 through legislative enactments in 1973 and proposals for the voters in 1974. The first section describes the 1973 school finance reform proposal, rejected by voters, as it was originally submitted (whereby the State would have assumed 95 percent of the operating…