Spending per pupil by Wisconsin public schools has lagged inflation in recent years and fallen further behind the U.S. average. This is due to a series of policy choices, including a recent two-year freeze on state-imposed caps on school district revenues, that have also helped to hold down state and local taxes. In a related trend, the share of…

As of 2023, 44 states plus the District of Columbia provide schools with supplemental funding for their low-income students. Policymakers often want to understand how the "amount" of extra funding they provide for low-income students compares to other states. Because states use different methodologies to determine these amounts, previous…

The School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), New Jersey's school finance law, requires the Governor, in consultation with the Commissioner of Education, to review certain components of the school funding formula every three years. The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) issued four Educational Adequacy Reports (EAR) between 2013 and 2022, but none…

This brief provides findings from the full report, "California's Higher Education Funding Landscape," which examines California's higher education funding sources, revenue trends over the past decade, and compares its funding model with other large states to inform future policies. Key findings include: (1) appropriations for higher…

In an effort to reduce state spending on special education in public schools, New Jersey moved to census-based funding as part of the new school funding formula, the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), adopted in 2008. The census approach funds all districts using the statewide average classification rate and a statewide average "excess…

This brief presents the results of a fiscal analysis of the Iowa Education Savings Account Program. The Iowa Education Savings Account Program offers eligible parents the opportunity to receive their children's per-pupil state funding directly into a parent-controlled education savings account (ESA), a fund earmarked for educational expenses. This…

Recent reports have highlighted the inequalities that exist in how state and federal funding is allocated to different institution types and the students they serve (Ahlman, 2019; Carnevale et al., 2018; Foster & Fowles, 2018; Mugglestone et al., 2019; Taylor & Cantwell, 2019; Taylor et al., 2020). Because these different types of…

State takeovers of school districts--a form of political centralization that shifts decision-making power from locally elected leaders to the state--have increased over time, often with the purported goal of improving district financial condition. Takeover has affected millions of students since the first takeover in 1988 and has been more common…

On April 2, the Milwaukee Public Schools will ask Milwaukee voters to allow the district to exceed state revenue limits by up to $252 million over four years to support its schools and programs. Here, we give our impartial take on the referendum, based on more than a decade of annual reviews of MPS' budget and finances. Our intent is to frame for…

For too long, Ohio underfunded its public charter schools. That policy was unfair to charter school students--many economically disadvantaged--whose educations received less taxpayer support simply by virtue of their choice of schools. It was also unfair to charter schools, which were required to serve children on fewer dollars than the districts…

During the Great Recession and in the years that immediately followed, previous research has well-documented that U.S. public school districts receiving larger shares of their funding from state governments experienced larger declines in expenditures per student, as the GR impacted state tax bases more than it impacted local tax bases. Using…

As discussed in "Splitting the Bill: How Are State Education Funding Formulas Structured?," state school funding formulas generally fit one of three structures -- student-based, resource-based, or program-based. The cornerstone of a student-based funding formula is the per-student base amount (also appropriately called the…

This paper studies how school spending impacts student achievement by exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation as state tax revenue shocks. Leveraging school finance data from universal school districts, our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that deregulation leads to an increase in per-pupil total revenue and expenditure.…

Since 2003, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has produced the annual State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report to broaden understanding and enable analysis of state-level and national funding and enrollment trends over time. The SHEF report supplies important context and trend analysis to help inform state…

Growth in per pupil education spending in the United States was mostly flat until 1918, after which it increased by almost 100 percent in a brief six-year period. This is the fastest documented increase in per pupil education spending in U.S. history. Using newly digitized biennial data on 386 of the largest urban school systems in the United…