Provides empirical evidence concerning the education/earnings distribution relationship in South Africa. Investment in education is directly related to earnings across racial groups. An increase in the average education level is associated with a narrower dispersion of earnings. A more equal education distribution is associated with a more equal…

When New Jersey passed the Quality Education Act to equalize expenditures between rich and poor school districts, it increased regulatory oversight for its 30 poorest districts. The oversight system, the burdens it created for districts, and the political control are described. The new system is evaluated as moderately effective. (SLD)

Uses a model of student and school behavior to simulate effects of differing voucher amounts on students in different income categories, drawing on two major assumptions concerning service delivery and competition. Poor youngsters would not be better off under voucher system. Even under highly favorable conditions, a systemic choice system would…

Mary Jean LeTendre, director of U.S. Education Department's Office of Compensatory Education, wants to concentrate Chapter 1 dollars on the neediest students in the neediest schools. John F. Jennings, general counsel for the House Education and Labor Committee, predicts more public education funding, a continuing push for national standards and…

Academic objectives are important, but more attention must be given youngsters' social, physical, emotional, and moral development. Schools are struggling to teach children whose home life is anxiety-ridden and learning-unfriendly. Because taxpayers resist generosity to poor families alone, we must design social programs to help all families and…

Educational equity must be reconceptualized and merged with children's conditions and a broader concept of children's services than schooling. National goals, particularly learning readiness, demand a broader definition of children's finance and equity. School-linked services can be funded by converging existing public and private funding streams…

Dr. John Brock was elected in 1987 for a four-year term as State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Kentucky. His official duties were altered by the Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA). Dr. Brock answers questions that include his role as superintendent, the background of KERA, and his advice to legislators in other states. (MLF)

Addresses the effects of fund raising on financial equity by examining the fund-raising activities of two (pseudonymous) school districts differing in many respects. Results show that higher socioeconomic schools can generate significantly more revenues through fund-raising activities than lower socioeconomic schools. Schools in wealthier…

The potential of educational finance reform to create more uniform, equitable educational opportunities for minorities and low-income students may exceed previous desegregation efforts via court litigation. This article discusses the ability of state-controlled finance reforms to meet a major segregation goal (improved educational quality)…

Since site-based management supports the separate-schools concept, promotes interschool competition, and allows community pressures to influence decision-making, great disparities in resource allocations can occur. To ensure equity, central management must define and limit principals' roles, provide training for principals, build consensus,…

Combines 1987/88 household-budget survey data and public-budget consolidated data to yield a nonestimation-based measure of the benefit of public education outlays in Greece. As expected in a country with free education and limited private education, transfers in elementary and secondary education contribute strongly to declining inequality. (28…

Reviews the school-level resource-allocation literature and presents findings of a study of school-district expenditures in Chicago, Forth Worth, New York, and Rochester. Horizontal equity results show that in Chicago, New York, and Fort Worth, most coefficients of variation are below 0.15. Rochester's system is slightly less equitable. For…

Examines equity consequences of Tennessee's 1992 education finance reform. Assesses concurrent changes in student performance over the funding formula's phase-in period, addressing test-score distribution and movement toward adequacy. Results are mixed. Tennessee should consider incorporating an outcome-based, adequacy funding approach to achieve…

In the United States, education is not universally recognized as a fundamental right, and states' educational expenditures are inequitable. Whether international efforts to establish the right to education could influence the U.S. educational system through modifying or informing the Constitution, or by recognition through the Ninth Amendment,…

Derives a time-denominated learning cost curve from an economic model of programmed instruction and uses experimental data to identify it for each learner. This portrayal suggests that equalizing the time allowed to learn, as in conventional group instruction, distributes learning outcomes and human capital unevenly. The distribution of education…