In 2022, Tennessee overhauled its education funding formula to improve outcomes for the 1 million students in the state. The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act (TISA) was designed to simplify the existing funding formula and more equitably allocate resources to schools. Bellwether's case study, "After the Policy Win: First-Year…

The achievement gap is a topic that has plagued the education research field for a long time. This persistent quandary is often rooted in disparities along racial, socioeconomic, and other demographic lines, such as geographical location. This study focuses on the achievement gap within the context of the Mississippi Delta. This rural region of…

Michigan policymakers and advocates are calling on the state to adopt a new school funding formula that provides additional funding to students with greater educational need, such as students with greater economic need. For Michigan students who have been identified as economically disadvantaged, at least a 35 percent weight is necessary for…

In 2013, California enacted an ambitious school funding reform--the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The LCFF fundamentally overhauled the state's prior K-12 education finance system, which studies found to be inequitable, irrational, and highly centralized. More than a decade after its enactment, a growing body of research indicates the LCFF…

Across all 50 states, there are different ways in which states allocate K-12 and special education funding to districts. Education Commission of the States has collected information on states' primary funding models, base per-student funding amounts, student attendance count methods, and funding for special education, English language learners,…

This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial…

As part of the national agenda of accountability, state governments established performance funding policy to hold public institutions accountable for their performance. Accountability allows state policymakers to incentivize institutions to address state demands of increasing graduation rates in return for performance allocations. Although the…

State policies to expand computer science (CS) education have popped up nearly everywhere since 2016. This acceleration speaks well to the collaborative work of state boards of education, intermediary and national organizations, state legislatures, and governors who championed those policies. It also speaks to the urgency of increasing all…

In an effort to improve learning for young children and respond to preschool fade out, some districts are working on "PreK-3" initiatives to create better connected learning pathways for children. In these pathways, primary grades continue to build on what children learn in preschool; they also present potential implementation challenges…

As current trends across the country indicate widespread declining student enrollment and attendance, EdChoice is interested in how states respond. It enlisted Hanover Research to summarize publicly available information for each of the 50 U.S. states about the role enrollment plays in state funding formulas, as well as any state-level policies…

While many state-level finance equity studies examine the effectiveness of state funding mechanisms overall, fewer examine specific components that make up these mechanisms. This research uses state-level longitudinal administrative data to examine levels of horizontal and vertical equity in the distribution of teacher salary dollars via the…

A well-intentioned bipartisan coalition came together in the late 20th century to spur improvement of the K-12 education system through test-based accountability and public school choice. The ability of this coalition to institute and maintain meaningful "accountability" proved extremely limited. State accountability systems morphed into…

Education Law Center's "Making the Grade" is an annual overview of the condition of school finance in the states. Using the most recently available data from the 2021-2022 school year, the report ranks and grades each state on three measures to answer the key question: How fair is school funding in your state? The three fairness measures…

Understanding how the District of Columbia (DC) funds District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) students and DC public charter school students is essential to ensuring all students receive the support they need as COVID-19 pandemic-era federal funds expire. The recent rise in the Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF) and the boost in the…

This paper analyzes the incentives induced by a formula to fund universities based primarily on enrolment. Using a simple game theoretical framework, we argue that the strategic behaviour induced by those formulas is to favour enrollment. We further argue that if the funding value differs by enrolment type, it introduces incentives to substitute…