Do education choice programs take money from public school districts, leaving fewer resources for students who remain? The issue at the heart of this question is one of the most powerful arguments offered by skeptics and opponents of such programs. A district's total budget might expand or contract as its student population expands or contracts.…

Opponents of education choice recycle the same false prophesies of doom without regard to the evidence or the size and scope of the proposals. For decades, the most common objection to education choice policies has been that they will "destroy public education." According to the critics, choice policies will induce the parents most…

The rapid expansion of neo-liberal regimes has effectively transformed how students -- their role and purpose -- are understood in society. Scholars, especially in the Anglophone North, have shown how dominant policy narratives tend to position students as consumers. More recent studies have begun to explore students' views of this construction.…

The year 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of implementation of New Jersey's court-ordered, full-day, high-quality preschool program in the state's 31 high-poverty, urban, "Abbott" districts. As the state continues to expand the program beyond these districts, it is imperative to examine whether Abbott Preschool is effectively meeting the…

Two questions about Texas school expenditure patterns are examined. First, "How progressive are spending patterns among high and low poverty schools?" Second, "How unequal are expenditures per pupil between schools with at least 70% of their students classified as economically disadvantaged, in different districts?" The data,…

The charter sector has historically received significant federal support through the Charter School Program, which was allocated $440 million in fiscal year 2020. However, the sector has been criticized for not serving a proportionate share of students with disabilities and being less equipped to educate them. To gain a better understanding of how…

The State Indicators Database (SID), which is the School Finance Indicators Database's (SFID) primary product, includes approximately 125 variables, but this report focuses on three key school finance measures: fiscal effort, adequacy, and progressivity. This report discusses how states' systems tend to mediate the impact of economic downturns and…

This article examines and interrogates the formulas used to determine funding at both the designation and institutional levels for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Coronavirus…

"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…

While there has been disinvestment into higher education, there is also a significant disparity in state investment for certain types of public institutions, specifically for less-resourced institutions such as HBCUs (Williams, 2020). There is not much literature that examines the relationship of formula funding or state appropriations on…

Financial scenario modelling appears to offer the potential to help universities cope with an uncertain funding environment. By means of a questionnaire survey of UK universities, supported by interviews with members of finance departments, this paper explores the prevalence and construction of financial models used for scenario analysis.…

Performance budgeting strategies have failed to realize the aspirations of their advocates for nearly 50 years. Performance budgeting underperforms because it is too simple a solution for complex problems. It overestimates the power of monetary incentives. Where improved performance can be easily achieved, it spends money where it is not needed.…

This exploratory study investigated how and to what extent reverse transfer has been implemented in Illinois, a state that did not receive funding as part of the Project Win Win (PWW) or Credit When It's Due (CWID) initiatives and where there are no statewide policies on reverse transfer. This mixed-methods study drew on survey and interview data…

The goal of this brief is to provide school district and school staff with tools to help make more effective and efficient use of resources, particularly American Rescue Plan ESSER III funding. ESSER III funding offers districts and schools an opportunity to not only support their immediate needs of safely reopening schools to in-person…

While a substantial body of research exists to demonstrate the benefits that choice policies such as education savings accounts (ESAs) have on various student, family, community, and societal outcomes, the fiscal impact of these policies is also an important part of the debate. This report examines solely the potential fiscal effects of…