In March of each year, the ministry publishes the Operating Grants Manual showing estimated funding allocations for school districts for the upcoming school year. These estimates are based on enrolment projections. On September 30 of the new school year, enrolment is counted and the grants are recalculated based on actual enrolment. The ministry…

This article presents an empirical analysis of the public funding system for higher education in Germany and a comparison with five other European countries. The large number of separate student support items in Germany makes it an exception and makes the system obscure. The allocations of public expenditure to German institutions are below…

There are very real barriers to using people, time, money, and technology well in today's public schools systems. To begin to break down these barriers, the Education Resource Strategies (ERS) has created a framework to prioritize seven urgent restructuring priorities. The authors have found that these areas represent the largest opportunities for…

Billions of education dollars are trapped each year. At this time of continued budget shortfalls when every dollar spent on education must yield maximum returns in student outcomes--states are frequently tying the hands of districts. While funding adequacy and equity must remain a priority for states, ensuring that limited resources are used as…

This research investigates state finance policies for public education using survey methodology. The purpose is to update previous work and the existing knowledge base in the field as well as to provide a compendium of finance and policy options that are used across the states to finance public elementary and secondary schools. Chief state school…

This study explores within-district fiscal resource allocation across elementary schools in Texas and Ohio large city school districts and in their surrounding metropolitan areas. Specifically, I ask whether districts widely reported as achieving greater resource equity through adoption of Weighted Student Funding (WSF) have in fact done so. I…

How government spends money, and who benefits, reveals the priorities. How, then, do children fare in the competition for public resources? While families have long been the primary caregivers of children, all levels of government--local, state, and federal--invest in the growth and development of children, whether through education, family…

The rich and the famous are much in the news these days--colleges and universities that is, the ones with endowments in the hundreds of millions or more and whose run-up in assets has raised questions about their non-profit status from both state and federal lawmakers. The U.S. Senate Finance committee wants to know, for example, why institutions…

With heightened expectations and greater funding as backdrop, one would expect elected officials and educators to ensure that America's substantial investment in public education is used effectively to accomplish its ambitious new goals. Conventional modes of funding school improvement, however, such as across-the-board salary increases,…

Community colleges across the nation appear to be facing a "perfect storm" during which surging enrollments, tepid state funding, and strong accountability forces are colliding to severely threaten access to and completion of postsecondary education and credentials by lower-skilled and low-income students. In the last few years, record enrollments…

Community colleges in nearly half of the states will probably face midyear reductions in their appropriations, according to a survey of members of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges. The study paints a bleak picture of a widening fiscal crisis among state governments, which started in the most recent budget year and is…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to such broad and fundamental questions of public…

The 2008-09 budget proposed by the Governor reduces funding for higher education by $1.1 billion, from a figure based on planned enrollment growth and other workload and eligibility factors. The California Postsecondary Education Commission is concerned that funding reductions could result in long-term damage to California's postsecondary…

This report summarizes the perspectives and attitudes of a selected set of district and school site administrators whom the authors interviewed in Twin Rivers Unified School District (TRUSD) during the fall of 2009. The authors carried out interviews and focus groups with these individuals to gain an understanding of how the current budgeting…

As a starting point for the Strategic School Funding for Results (SSFR) project, the AIR/PLP (American Institutes for Research/Pivot Learning Partners) team developed a series of protocols to conduct interviews and focus groups with district administrators and school principals. The purpose of these interviews and focus groups was to gain an…