Arkansas launched a series of far-reaching reforms in 2003 and 2004 aimed at promoting equity and adequacy of education. The education funding system has since directed considerably more school resources to economically disadvantaged and low-performing school districts. This study investigates whether a more equitable allocation of educational…

"Making the Grade" provides an annual overview of the condition of school finance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data in this edition gives a picture of states' investment in their public school systems in the 2019-20 school year, the historic moment when public education, and society at large, experienced the massive…

School districts have increasingly adopted weighted student funding (WSF) formulas that allocate dollars, rather than staff positions, to schools in the name of equity and flexibility. While research to date has studied equity in some of these districts, there is no research that examines the entire cohort of WSF districts together. This paper…

School districts have increasingly adopted weighted student funding (WSF) formulas that allocate dollars, rather than staff positions, to schools in the name of equity and flexibility. While research to date has studied equity in some of these districts, there is no research that examines the entire cohort of WSF districts together. This paper…

Troubled by the inequities in competitive grantmaking, we use critical quantitative methods to analyze the FY2023 federal academic earmarks as a potential mechanism for racialized change work. Specifically, we ask: To what extent does Congress distribute academic earmarks in ways that reinforce or weaken the racialized stratification of resources…

This Policy Brief begins by reviewing the educational and societal impacts of quality pre-K programs before revealing legislative changes to state pre-K funding in 2017-18. The brief highlights four states and breaks down total pre-K funding for all states, including year-over-year changes.

This paper takes a novel time series perspective on K-12 school spending. About half of school spending is financed by state government aid to local districts. Because state aid is generally income conditioned, with low-income districts receiving more aid, state aid acts as a mechanism for risk sharing between school districts. We show that…

China's financial input mechanism reform's current development trend involves fully implementing budget performance management and constructing a performance-oriented financial allocation model. These are also essential measures in promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The current financial…

In alignment with Vision 2030, the Economic and Workforce Development (EWD) Program serves as a fundamental tool for meeting the goals of equity in access, equity in support, and equity in success. The EWD Program enhances career education and supports students' socioeconomic mobility by providing opportunities for workforce training, upskilling,…

New research finds that increased spending on public education improves student achievement, thereby debunking the notion that "money doesn't matter" and making the case for greater investment in preschool-12 public education. How money is spent matters, but funding must also be adequate, equitable, and stable from year to year so that…

This report is the third of three annual reports evaluating the implementation and effects of two Delaware weighted funding programs designed to support Delaware's 42 school districts and charter schools (also known as local education agencies [LEAs]) enrolling students experiencing poverty (SEPs) and multilingual learners (MLs) during the…

This document provides state education agency (SEA) leaders with a systematized approach to identifying and defining elements, major tasks, and deliverables for conducting a meaningful resource allocation review (RAR). Based on the findings of an intensive four-year design process, field research, and recommendations from the pilot audit of the…

The latest edition of "Quality Counts 2018" takes a detailed look at what is behind this year's school finance grades from the Education Week Research Center, first reported as part of the annual state-by-state ranking of the nation's schools released in January. Under the new "Quality Counts" format, this second of three…

In 2009, the federal government passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to combat the effects of the Great Recession and state revenue shortfalls, directing over $97 billion to school districts. In this chapter, we draw lessons from this distribution of fiscal stimulus funding to inform future federal intervention in school…

Hold-harmless provisions in state aid formulas are meant to restrict declines in revenues for school districts. They may take several forms, including limits on the changes in state aid from year to year, supplemental funding for districts with declining enrollment, alternatives for calculating the state aid amount, or use of past enrollments in…