This brief tells the story of Indiana's efforts to develop and implement outcomes-based funding (OBF) for public postsecondary education. Indiana's story is supplemented by a briefer description of efforts in Tennessee. Based primarily on interviews with key state leaders, this story is designed to highlight the unique path each state took to…

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 Impact Aid program, administered by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), was originally established in 1950 by P.L. 81-815 and P.L. 81-874, 15 years prior to the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Impact Aid compensates local educational agencies (LEAs) for a "substantial and continuing financial…

Objective: An increasing number of states are adopting performance-based funding (PBF) systems for their public colleges, but there are concerns that PBF dissuades colleges from recruiting and enrolling students with a lower likelihood of success. Some states have attempted to address this concern by providing additional funds for successfully…

Resource exposure is believed to be a key mechanism linking patterns of racial segregation and student outcomes during the Brown v. Board of Education era. Decades later, literature suggests that past progress on school desegregation may have stalled, raising concerns about resource equity and associated student outcomes. Are recent trends in…

Across all 50 states, there are different ways in which states allocate K-12 funding to districts. This document provides information for each state on: funding mechanism, base amount (if found in statute), base amount citation, special education funding and funding mechanism, special education citation, English language learner funding and…

According to the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) law, most school districts in the state are responsible for using LCFF funds to improve outcomes for low-income students. Each district has created a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), the funding plan for LCFF. The LCAP is reviewed and revised annually by each district. Early…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how school superintendents were using general fund referenda to meet their school district's operational budgets. However, after interviews began it became clear that the superintendents wanted to tell a different story and that was how the current school funding mechanism and property tax caps…

Rural America is experiencing an era of unprecedented demographic change, as rural communities of color are growing--an expansion that is necessary for keeping rural America thriving. But racial and class inequality divides many rural places, threatening rural students' education and rural communities' well-being, and the current pandemic is…

The Pathways for Academic Career and Employment (PACE) program is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of programs that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gainful employment and…

This report explains how Michigan could pursue a flexible funding program that would give learners greater agency, especially for middle-school and secondary students and their families. Charting a path to complete a diploma, every student would be allowed to use a portion of their per-pupil allotment to "purchase" courses from schools…

Noncredit community college enrollment accounts for approximately 40% of all enrollment in the two-year sector, or five million students (American Association of Community Colleges, 2016). Yet, this population is seldom discussed in the higher education literature due to inconsistent definitions, funding, and data reporting at the state level.…

Policymakers and practitioners often must balance distributing resources equitably and efficiently while being accountable for high student achievement. This paper focuses on these concepts as they relate to English learners and examines equity and efficiency in Minnesota's educational funding from 2003 through 2011, the years spanning…

The Trump administration has no significant plan or strategy related to higher education. The only major policy declarations--to eliminate federal regulations on for-profit colleges and revisit federal guidelines on sexual assault on college campuses--both unravel policies developed under the Obama administration. Where the fate of higher…

In policy circles, the first question of the year often relates to college enrollment. Most common is the question: "Are you up or down in enrollment?" More often than not, the enrollment question may be answered in terms of full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment. While the answer does have programmatic implications, the initial interest…