Recent research and a 1996 PBS documentary concluded that Ohio's educational finance system remains inequitable. Guarantees to districts facilitated equity, but assessed property valuation per pupil significantly predicted current operating expenditures during the 1980s. Effects of state loans, property tax limitations, and the lottery are…

Examines state- and district-level spending patterns in Tennessee to assess the extent to which the Basic Education Program (BEP) funding formula has affected spending in the state and spending in districts with varying characteristics, for example, poverty status of students, school district size. Suggests that BEP led to greater education…

When Mark Smith was principal of Houston's Anderson Elementary School in the early 1990s, he often ran up against a maddening mathematics problem. At the time, the Houston Independent School District doled out money to schools for nonteaching staff members--like assistant principals, clerks, and librarians--based on a set of enrollment formulas…

New Zealand's special funding system allows state schools a greater level of independence in managing their property compared to most other countries. Schools receive a fixed budget as an entitlement from the three "pots" of the educational property funding structure. The government's unique use of accrual accounting together with a new…

This article highlights the Government Printing Office's (GPO) successful transition from a producer of print publications to a service provider and how this has affected the role of Federal Depository Libraries in an increasingly electronic service environment. It discusses the identity crisis currently facing Federal Depository Libraries during…

In this article, the author describes how the "weighted student" funding, under which money is divvied up based on the actual number and kinds of students at each school, gains favor among education leaders. With weighted-student funding, a district divides up money--rather than staff positions and programs--among schools. Proponents…

Changing state revenues have prompted heightened concern about the immediate short- and long-term future and stability of state investments in higher education. The 2007 Survey of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges (NCSDCC) is the third administration of questions to determine questions of access, funding and overall…

The Illinois Supreme Court has permitted the General Assembly to create a system of public school funding that is widely disparate and disadvantageous to students in school districts with low-property wealth. In this Article, I argue that the court has not adequately considered the nexus between the Uniformity of Taxation provision and the…

In the "Sydney Morning Herald" of 23 March 2005, Ross Gittins argued that the funding arrangements for private schools positively encourage parents to move their children from the state system. The then Federal Minister for Education, Dr Brendan Nelson, in a letter to the "Herald" of 25-27 March, responded by saying that 68% of…

In recent years, policy makers and educators in the U.S. have begun to show considerable interest in the concept of weighted student funding as a means of financing primary and secondary schools. Weighted student funding (WSF) has three main elements. Money follows students on a per student basis to the schools they attend, the per student amount…

The United States Department of Education's "Annual Performance Report" (APR) for fiscal year (FY) 2009 provides detailed information on how the outcomes of the strategic performance measures identified in its "FY 2007-2012 Strategic Plan" and updated in the "Fiscal Year 2008 Performance and Accountability Report"…

Background: Pay is an important human resource function that has attracted considerable interest within the professional literature and this study addresses pay discrimination. Purpose(s): To address pay for a particular protected group unaddressed in existing literature (Hispanic-surnamed principals). Setting: The setting for this study is public…

Two proposals in the bill currently circulating to reauthorize No Child Left Behind seem to be shoe-ins for making their way into federal law. The impetus behind both proposals is to help poor kids by making sure that districts spend as much money on them as gets spent on rich kids. Going against the grain, the National Council on Teacher Quality…

As funding for special education increases, it becomes important for educational policy-makers to understand the effects caused by the distribution of monies. This paper focuses on key programmatic and management issues in the funding of special education. Four main topics are discussed: (1) the relationship between special education programs and…

This report sets out some possible goals for a California school finance system that could better support student performance. It also describes the key forces that will shape any debate about school finance reform in California and examines those in the context of some important aspects of an effective finance system. In the process, the report…