Californians are very concerned about funding for their K-12 public schools. They consistently say that K-12 education should be protected from spending cuts over and above any other area of the state budget. California's system of school finance is in trouble. Many studies have found it to be inequitable, with wide variation in per-pupil funding.…

Washington State Department of Early Learning (DEL) contracted with Thrive by Five Washington to facilitate and write this report. A collaborative group of key stakeholders helped develop this plan, which consists of actionable policy recommendations in seven high-level focus areas. Within each area are specific "next steps" that build…

People have high regard for the arts, whatever the medium. From painting to the written word to performance and beyond, the arts help define people, both as individuals and as a society. And yet a strange dichotomy exists within one's society, where the arts are paid rhetorical respect even when they are not always adequately funded. Arts…

In 2000, the California State Legislature passed what is now known as the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA). This effort was designed to provide a stable funding source to counties for juvenile programs that have been proven effective in curbing crime among juvenile probationers and young at-risk offenders. The Corrections Standards…

This report represents the latest State Governance Action Report (SGAR) covering current or just recently completed legislative sessions. Among the most important issues being considered are management autonomy, such as relaxed rules for purchasing, procurement, and human resources, and greater fiscal autonomy measures such as carry-over budgeting…

Cyber charter schools are public charter schools which are entirely online and typically serve all grades from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Pennsylvania implemented widespread charter school legislation as early as 1997. This has offered a great number of Pennsylvanians options in their public schooling. One of these options has been…

California school districts are being expected to "do more with less." They face critical and competing pressures to improve academic achievement while remaining fiscally solvent in a time of increasing budgetary pressures. This report examines the financial circumstances of California's school districts and the actions they have been…

Montana's definition of a basic system of quality public elementary and secondary schools includes educational programs for at-risk students (20-9-309, MCA). State statute defines an at-risk student as a "student who is affected by environmental conditions that negatively impact the student's educational performance or threaten a student's…

March 24, 2007, marked a decade since the Ohio Supreme Court first ruled that the state school funding system was unconstitutional. Further, "DeRolph I" was followed by three more Ohio State Supreme Court decisions regarding the issue. Although the judicial decisions of "DeRolph I and II", reinforced by "DeRolph IV", clearly identified the legal…

Scope and method of study. The purpose of this study is to understand the existing state legislation concerning bullying in schools to determine whether the development, structure, and content of these state mandates parallel any change in reported incidents of bullying by public schools in each of those states. This is a descriptive and…

With the failure of most of the May 19 ballot measures, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has released additional proposed revisions to the current year (2008-09) and budget year (2009-10) state spending plans. The Governor and Legislature adopted an 18-month spending plan in late February, but that budget now has a $24 billion deficit. The…

Performance funding in higher education ties state funding directly to institutional performance on specific indicators, such as rates of retention, graduation, and job placement. One of the great puzzles about performance funding is that it has been both popular and unstable. Between 1979 and 2007, 26 states enacted it, but 14 of those states…

In 2000, the California State Legislature passed the Schiff-Cardenas Crime Prevention Act, which authorized funding for county juvenile-justice programs and designated the Corrections Standards Authority (CSA) (formerly named the Board of Corrections) the administrator of funding. A 2001 California Senate bill extended the funding and changed the…

This report projects the amount Colorado would need to spend to maintain state services at 2007 levels through fiscal year 2012-13 and the amount of revenues that will be generated to pay for them. The costs of services were estimated based on factors that drive the budget, such as the number of students in college, inflation rates and the number…

If one wanted to win a library election in 2006, what would have been the mythical perfect referenda? For building referenda, the sweet spot was hit with measures over $10 million, on a ballot sometime between September and December, with no other items on the ballot, in a general election, for a library serving a population under 100,000. For the…