A theory of educational opportunity that combines adequacy and equity arguments is informed by examining two popular philosophies of resource distribution. Amy Gutmann's democratic threshold theory provides an adequacy argument that mirrors in several ways arguments that have held favor in educational policy. Similarly, the distributive justice…

The Australian Government provides basic operating grants to universities, which are used to teach domestic undergraduate students. It imposes a productivity offset on the grants to encourage improvements in university productivity. But it is not transparent and does not vary across universities. Thus, universities have little incentive to improve…

The present study investigated age-related changes in the intergroup allocation of resources depending on whether the ingroup norm was competitive or cooperative. Participants included children (M[subscript age] = 8.69), adolescents (M[subscript age] = 13.81), and adults (M[subscript age] = 20.89), (N = 263) who were inducted into simulated groups…

Beginning in 2018, the Texas Commission on Public School Finance, comprised of 13 members inside and outside of the legislature, will begin the task of studying and making recommendations to improve the school finance system. This five-part series prepares readers to engage with lawmakers and the school finance commission by providing background…

Policymakers and others seeking to guide and support California's school districts in the era of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) may benefit from better understanding how recent policy shifts shape the work of district leadership. This paper summarizes interview findings that convey the practical, on-the-ground perspectives of an…

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) annual plan identifies the audits, inspections, and other activities that the OIG intends to undertake to assist the Department in fulfilling its responsibilities to America's citizens and students. OIG's FY 2022 Annual Plan details the assignment areas and resources…

School desegregation and equitable access to educational opportunity takes alignment in the housing and education sectors. Racist housing policies and practices have systematically limited access to opportunity for generations of people of color, profoundly affecting their wealth, and perpetuating racial disparities in opportunity and well-being…

The intention of this paper is to add to existing knowledge of how building-level spending is prioritized toward horizontal and vertical equity during severe economic downturns. Using a sample of all public schools in Texas during the Great Recession, we examine how schools undergoing the greatest spending reductions reallocated their spending on…

After a tumultuous reception, the Biden administration's regulations for the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) were finalized in July. Although the Administration backpedaled partway on issues related to community demand and racial integration, its final rules cracked down on so-called "for-profit charters," in line with the…

School buildings across America are crumbling. According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), 54 percent of U.S. school districts need to update or completely replace multiple building systems in their schools. As a result of decades of underfunding school infrastructure, national spending for K-12 school buildings…

This article focuses on Latinx transfer inequity and the role of state policy in addressing barriers faced trying to move from community college to four-year institutions. A recently passed initiative in California, known as the Student Equity Policy, offers community colleges the opportunity to address transfer barriers for racial/ethnic students…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "The Census Effect." Contents include: (1) The 2020 Census is Here -- Schools…

This qualitative collective case study sought to explain rural public elementary school teachers' feelings of self-efficacy and burnout when managing student behaviors, their perceptions of student behaviors, why these perceptions exist, and strategies used, if any, that may result in increased feelings of self-efficacy and/or decreased feelings…

The key to anticipating local response to state finance policy is to bridge knowledge of the state context with the specifications of the individual reform. Yet it is precisely this unique blend of social, political, and economic factors in any given state that makes the impact of school finance reforms difficult to predict, especially as these…

The study employed qualitative methodology, relying on semi-structured interviews, in order to identify and analyze occurrences of the garbage-can decision-making model regarding resource attainment and allocation in Israeli schools. Results indicate that the garbage-can model of decision-making is salient when school principals try to use…