This article look at the students who attend for-profits, the reason they choose these schools, and student out-comes on the number of broad measures and draw several conclusions. The authors write, the evidences shows that public community colleges may provide an equal or better education at lower cost at any for-profits. But budget pressure mean that community colleges and other nonselective public institutions may not be able to meet the demand for higher education. Second, for-profits appear to be at their best with well-defined programs of short duration that prepare students for a specific occupation. But for-profit completion rates, default rates, and labor market outcomes for students seeking associate's or higher degrees compare unfavorable with those of public postsecondary institutions.
This article discuss about the history of California spending on school facilities and the impact of the situation.
Frey, S. (2016). Report: California and the nation don’t spend enough on school facilities. Edsource. Retrieved from https://edsource.org/2016/report-california-and-the-nation-dont-spend-enough-on-school-facilities/562142
Schools in the United States now spend more than $2 billion each year on education technology. But what are schools getting in return for this significant investment in technology learning? Robert Slavin examines the results from five studies designed to answer this question.
Slavin, R. (2019). A Powerful Hunger for Evidence-Proven Technology. Baltimore, MD: Robert Slavin’s Blog. https://robertslavinsblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/a-powerful-hunger-for-evidence-proven-technology/.
This article explore the relationship between per pupil spending and learning, particularly in developing countries that spend much lower levels in education than do OECD countries. Their findings suggest that, when education systems spend above $8,000, the association between student learning and per student spending is no longer statistically significant. Therefore, they find a threshold effect after this level of resources is met, indicating a declining relationship between resources and achievement at high levels of expenditure (consistent with other recent literature). There is a positive relationship between student learning and per pupil expenditure among the low-spending countries (below $8,000 per student), but a flat relationship among high-spending countries.
Vegas, E. (2016).Why Money Matters for Improving Education. Brooking Institutions. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/07/21/why-money-matters-for-improving-education/
This cheat sheet provide the accountability, early reaction and more details on other aspect (an update of past Politics K-12 cheat sheets, including some new information on which programs made it into the agreement and which are on the chopping block) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Accountability and the ESEA Reauthorization Deal: Your Cheat Sheet. (2015). Education Week. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2015/11/accountability_and_the_esea_re.html
This study examines how and why teacher quality is inequitably distributed, by reviewing research and examining data on school funding, salaries, and teacher qualifications from California and New York—two large states that face similar demographic diversity and educational challenges.
Adamson, F., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2012). Funding disparities and the inequitable distribution of teachers: Evaluating sources and solutions. education policy analysis archives, 20, 37.
This analysis examines whether the current mechanisms for providing federal education funding to disadvantaged children are effective and whether the system works as originally intended.
Aud, S. L. (2007). A Closer Look at Title I: Making Education for the Disadvantaged More Student-Centered. Heritage Special Report. SR-15. Heritage Foundation.
This report explores some of the most financially disadvantaged school districts in the country and identifies a typology of conditions that have created or reinforced their disadvantage. It report lays out a typology of conditions that lead to severe fiscal disadvantage for local public school systems. It then provides examples of states, state policy conditions, and specific local public school districts identified as being severely financially disadvantaged.
Baker, B. (2014). America's Most Financially Disadvantaged School Districts and How They Got That Way. Washington: Center for American Progress.
This report begins by identifying those states where combined state and local revenues are systematically lower in higher-poverty districts–that is, states with “regressive” school funding distributions. Based on this analysis, the authors focus on six states–Illinois, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and North Carolina–where children attending school in higher-poverty districts still have substantially less access to state and local revenue than children attending school in lower-poverty districts. With these states in mind, the authors then go beyond recent reports on school funding inequities to uncover some nontraditional causes of these imbalances.
Baker, B. D., & Corcoran, S. P. (2012). The Stealth Inequities of School Funding: How State and Local School Finance Systems Perpetuate Inequitable Student Spending. Center for American Progress.
The National Report Card is a critique of state school funding systems and the extent to which these systems ensure equality of educational opportunity for all children, regardless of background, family income, place of residence or school. The report makes the assumption that "fair" school funding is defined as "a state finance system that ensures equal educational opportunity by providing a sufficient level of funding distributed to districts within the state to account for additional needs generated by student poverty."
Baker, B. D., Sciarra, D. G., & Farrie, D. (2010). Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card. Education Law Center.
The Second Edition of the National Report Card on public school funding, Is School Funding Fair?, shows that far too many states continue to deny public schools the essential resources they need to meet the needs of the nation's 53 million students and to boost academic achievement. The National Report Card rates the 50 states on the basis of four "fairness indicators" - funding level, funding distribution, state fiscal effort, and public school coverage. The Report provides the most in-depth analysis to date of state education finance systems and school funding fairness across the nation.
Baker, B. D., Sciarra, D. G., & Farrie, D. (2012). Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card: Second Edition. Education Law Center.
The 3rd Edition of Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card details how the Great Recession and its aftermath have affected school funding in the states. The National Report Card (NRC) examines each state's level of commitment to equal educational opportunity, regardless of a student's background, family income, or where she or he attends school. Providing fair school funding -- at a sufficient level with additional funds to meet needs generated by poverty -- is crucial if all students are to be afforded the opportunity to learn and be successful.
Baker, B. D., Sciarra, D. G., & Farrie, D. (2014). Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card: Third Edition. Education Law Center.
This report analyzes the disparity in funding and resources in K-12 education for children of color and low-income families. It found that millions of students–largely low-income students and students of color–continue to attend segregated and economically isolated schools. State and district school finance systems perpetuate and compound these inequities by providing less money to students with the greatest need.
Baker, B., & Corcoran, S. (2012). The stealth inequities of school funding. Center for American Progress, Washington, DC.
This article reviews the economic studies on early childhood education and places them in the context of the larger knowledge base on this topic. It concludes that well designed programs and policies do produce significant results but, most current programs and policies are not well designed or implemented effectively.
Barnett, W. S. (2007). Benefits and costs of quality early childhood education. Child. Legal Rts. J., 27, 7.
In these pages, we estimate the costs of blendedlearning models and fulltime virtual schools as currently operated in the U.S.
Battaglino, T. B., Haldeman, M., & Laurans, E. (2012). Creating sound policy for digital learning: The costs of online learning. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute. http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2012/20120110-the-costs-of-online-learning/20120110-the-costs-of-online-learning.pdf
This research compare for-profit college networks with the public sector. The author emphasize economic criteria for evaluating colleges and the need to consider many such criteria to make a valid comparison. In conclusion, public colleges are much cheaper than for-profit colleges. From a student perspective, this difference would have to be offset by a much superior performance of for-profit colleges to be advantageous. However, the evidence tends to point in the opposite direction. While ITT’s post-enrollment student earnings are comparable to those of many public colleges, on the whole the outcomes of public colleges appear to be better than those of the two closed for-profit networks of colleges.
Belfield, C. (2016). Comparing Closed For-Profit Colleges to Public College Sector. CAPSEE. Retrieved from https://capseecenter.org/comparing-closed-for-profit-colleges-to-public-college-sector/
The focus of this essay is on which economic methods can complement and enhance impact evaluations. The authors propose the use of six domains to link intervention effectiveness to the best technique needed to determine which practice is the most cost-effective choice.
Belfield, C. R., & Brooks Bowden, A. (2019). Using Resource and Cost Considerations to Support Educational Evaluation: Six Domains. Educational Researcher, 48(2), 120-127.
The authors discuss how to use economic techniques to evaluate educational programs and show how to apply basic cost analysis to implementation of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS).
Blonigen, B. A., Harbaugh, W. T., Singell, L. D., Horner, R. H., Irvin, L. K., & Smolkowski, K. S. (2008). Application of economic analysis to school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) programs. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 10(1), 5–19. doi: 10.1177/1098300707311366
This report examines the efficiency of the nation's public education system
Boser, U. (2011). Return on Educational Investment: A District-by-District Evaluation of US Educational Productivity. Center for American Progress.
This report analyzes two critical, and sometimes competing, issues in school finance reformer: fiscal equity and fiscal efficiency. It makes the case that fiscal equity and fiscal effectiveness are not mutually exclusive, and this nation needs to do more to improve both the fairness and the productivity of public school dollars. In other words, we need to make sure that schools and districts not only get enough money to serve their student populations but also that they then spend those dollars wisely.
Boser, U. (2014). Educational Equity and Effectiveness- The Need for Fiscal Fairness and Fiscal Productivity. Washington: Center for American Progress.
Using detailed expenditure data for school districts in California, this paper exploits variation in charter school enrollment across time and between districts to evaluate how district spending and overall financial health change as nearby charter sectors expand. Differences between results found in this analysis and those from similar analyses in other states may be explicable in terms of California’s economic and policy context, providing lessons for policymakers.
Bruno, P. (2017). Charter competition and district finances: Evidence from California. Working Paper.
This document is one of a series of reports based on the Special Education Expenditure Project, a study of the nation's spending on special education and related services based on analysis of data for the 1999-2000 school year.
Chambers, J. G., Parrish, T. B., & Harr, J. J. (2002). What Are We Spending on Special Education Services in the United States, 1999-2000? Report. Special Education Expenditure Project (SEEP).
This report presents case studies of the efforts by three school districts, Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), Memphis City Schools (MCS), and Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), to launch, implement, and operate new teacher evaluation systems as part of a larger reform effort called the Partnership Sites to Empower Effective Teaching.
Chambers, J., Brodziak de los Reyes, I., & O'Neil, C. (2013). How Much are Districts Spending to Implement Teacher Evaluation Systems?.
Research has revealed that effective teachers are critical to improving student achievement. Little evidence exists, however, about the best ways to help teachers be more effective, or about how schools that serve the students in most need can attract and retain the most effective teachers.
Chiang, H., Speroni, C., Herrmann, M., Hallgren, K., Burkander, P., & Wellington, A. Evaluation of the Teacher Incentive Fund: Final Report on Implementation and Impacts of Pay-for-Performance Across Four Years (Executive Summary) (No. 4b317dd18fd94603b46ef0c6825b90d2). Mathematica Policy Research.
Although many factors combine to make a successful school, most people agree that quality teachers and school principals are among the most important requirements for success, especially when success is defined by the ability of the school to raise the achievement of its students. The central question for this study is how the quality of the teachers and principals in high-poverty schools in North Carolina compares to that in the schools serving more advantaged students.
Clotfelter, C., Ladd, H. F., Vigdor, J., & Wheeler, J. (2006). High-poverty schools and the distribution of teachers and principals. NCL Rev., 85, 1345.
This research and development report field-tested a new model for collection of finance data at the school level—the School- Level Finance Survey (SLFS). The pilot SLFS, collected for fiscal year (FY) 14 (school year 2013–14) and FY 15 (school year 2014–15), was designed to evaluate whether the survey is a viable, efficient, and cost-effective method to gather comparable school-level finance data.
Cornman, S.Q., Reynolds, D., Zhou, L., Ampadu, O., D’Antonio, L., Gromos, D., Howell, M., and Wheeler, S. (2019). The Feasibility of Collecting School-Level Finance Data: An Evaluation of Data From the School- Level Finance Survey (SLFS) School Year 2014–15 (NCES 2019-305). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
The costs associated with teacher turnover in Alaska are considerable, but have never been systematically calculated,1 and this study emerged from interests among Alaska education researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders to better understand these costs.
DeFeo, D. J., Tran, T., Hirshberg, D., Cope, D., & Cravez, P. (2017). The cost of teacher turnover in Alaska. Anchorage, AK: Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, University of Alaska Anchorage. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11122/7815/2017-CostTeacher.pdf?sequence=1
Research on teacher turnover has led to the identification of retention strategies to help advance the profession and improve the recruitment, preparation, and support of teachers. This report summarizes available research on these strategies and discusses potential barriers and research on their relative cost-effectiveness.
Donley, J., Detrich, R., States, J., & Keyworth, R. (2019). Teacher Retention Analysis Overview. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/teacher-retention-strategies
This paper provides a guide to statistically based methods for estimating the extra costs of educating disadvantaged students, shows how these methods are related, and compares state aid programs that account for these costs in different ways. It shows that large, urban school districts with a high concentration of disadvantaged students would receive far more aid (and rich suburban districts would receive far less aid) if statistically based pupil weights were used instead of the ad hoc weights in existing state aid programs.
Duncombe, W., & Yinger, J. (2005). How much more does a disadvantaged student cost?. Economics of Education Review, 24(5), 513-532.
The largest Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) expenditure by far is for its Title I program. This report try to follow the money to see whether Title I funds are spent effectively and whether or not ESEA achieves its objectives. This report suggest focusing effective interventions on the neediest students may provide a way forward that is consistent with fiscal realities.
Dynarski, M., kainz, K. (2015). Why federal spending on disadvantaged students (Title I) doesn’t work. Brookings Institutions. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-federal-spending-on-disadvantaged-students-title-i-doesnt-work/
The Rand Corporation just released its report evaluating the impact of the Principal Pipeline Initiative (PPI),a project supported by the Wallace Foundation to create and implement a strategic process for school leadership talent management. This report documents what the PPI districts were able to accomplish, describing the implementation of the PPI and its effects on student achievement, other school outcomes, and principal retention.
Gates, Susan M., Matthew D. Baird, Benjamin K. Master, and Emilio R. Chavez-Herrerias, Principal Pipelines: A Feasible, Affordable, and Effective Way for Districts to Improve Schools, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-2666-WF, 2019.
The author summarizes four new strands in agency theory that help him think about incentives in real organizations. The author concludes by suggesting two avenues for further progress in agency theory: better integration with organizational economics, and cross-pollination with other fields that study organizations.
Gibbons, R. (1998). Incentives in organizations. Journal of economic perspectives, 12(4), 115-132.
The report examines the effect of state funding systems and high stakes testing on special
education enrollment.
Greene, J. P., & Forster, G. (2002). Effects of Funding Incentives on Special Education Enrollment. Civic Report.
This report examines the widespread and unjust district budgeting practices and offers Congress a straightforward legislative path: Fix the so-called comparability provisions of Title I.
Hall, D., & Ushomirsky, N. (2010). Close the Hidden Funding Gaps in Our Schools. K-12 Policy. Education Trust.
The goal of this paper was to study twin districts and use the data culled to provide recommendations for how districts can best leverage their school funding investments–in other words, achieve a bigger bang for their educational buck. The findings were: When it comes to education, spending does not always equal results. There are significant funding inequities between demographically similar districts. Districts have limited control over their own expenditures.
Hanna R., Morris B. (2014). Parallel Lives, Different Outcomes: A Twin Study of Academic Productivity in U.S. School Districts. Washington: Center for American Progress.
This report from the Study of School-Level Expenditures presents findings on how state and local education expenditures at the school level vary within school districts.
Heuer, R., & Stullich, S. (2011). Comparability of State and Local Expenditures among Schools within Districts: A Report from the Study of School-Level Expenditures. Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, US Department of Education.
Through several postsecondary surveys, NCES collects information about where and how the aid is distributed and whether it had an impact on student outcomes. This brochure describes the NCES postsecondary survey.
IPEDS presents NCES postsecondary survey. (2018). National Center for Education Statistic, 2017136. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017136.pdf
The purpose of this article is to provide prospectus to the problem and develop key recommendations that may be utilized by urban districts to reduce its financial costs and to significantly improve staff and student attendance.
Jacobs, K. D., & Kritsonis, W. A. (2007). An Analysis of Teacher and Student Absenteeism in Urban Schools: What the Research Says and Recommendations for Educational Leaders. Online Submission.
This article examines the 65% Solution, a reform proposal for school financing.
Jonsson, P. (2006). Christian Science Monitor
This report fills an important gap in the literature on school leadership by presenting an approach for understanding the resources and expenditures associated with efforts to prepare, hire, evaluate, develop, and support school leaders and by presenting estimates of those resources and expenditures.
Kaufman, J. H., Gates, S. M., Harvey, M., Wang, Y., & Barrett, M. (2017). What It Takes to Operate and Maintain Principal Pipelines: Costs and Other Resources. RAND Corporation. PO Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138.
this study presents and apply a framework for measuring the cost of coaching programs to 3 schools. Then the study discusses strategies for reducing the average cost of instructional coaching.
Knight, D. S. (2012). Assessing the cost of instructional coaching. Journal of Education Finance, 52-80.
This paper discusses about reasons for the failure of incentive programs. Studies show the ineffectivity of incentive plans to boost productivity.
Kohn, A. (1993). Why incentive plans cannot work. Harvard Business Review, 71(5), 54–63. Retrieved from http://study.huizhou.gov.cn/lessionnew/bdmpa/MPA-A15/contents/case/cas_008_01.pdf
This report highlights the lack of innovation, flexibility, and new ideas in state financing of public education. It concludes: many state and education leaders continue to support and employ methods that prevent schools and principals from undertaking the efforts that they think are most needed to improve education in their classrooms. The use of state categorical–funds to school districts with strict limits on their use–exemplifies this lack of innovation in school finance.
Lazarin, M. (2013). How Approaches to Stuck-in-the-Mud School Funding Hinder Improvement. Center for American Progress.
Much of the theory in personnel economics relates to effects of monetary incentives on output, but the theory was untested because appropriate data were unavailable. A new data set for the Safelite Glass Corporation tests the predictions that average productivity will rise, the firm will attract a more able workforce, and variance in output across individuals at the firm will rise when it shifts to piece rates.
Lazear, E. P. (2000). Performance pay and productivity. American Economic Review, 90(5), 1346-1361.
This article provides a summary of measuring the fiscal impact of practices in education
educational policy.
Levin, H. M., & McEwan, P. J. (2002). Cost-effectiveness and educational policy. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.
This paper explore the power of behavioral economics to influence the level of effort exerted by students in a low stakes testing environment. This paper find a substantial impact on test scores from incentives when the rewards are delivered immediately. There is suggestive evidence that rewards framed as losses outperform those framed as gains.
Levitt, S. D., List, J. A., Neckermann, S., & Sadoff, S. (2016). The behavioralist goes to school: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve educational performance. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 8(4), 183-219.
This study created a model and methodology to document turnover costs for the middle and high schools in the Boston Public Schools to test the degree to which it could detect differences in costs for teachers of science, and to explore the feasibility of its implementation by school personnel
Levy, A. J., Joy, L., Ellis, P., Jablonski, E., & Karelitz, T. M. (2012). Estimating teacher turnover costs: A case study. Journal of Education Finance, 38(2), 102–129.
This report examines the current available state remedies for inequity; examine the Equity and Excellence Commission’s findings regarding the inequities that exist in U.S. educa�tion and its five-part agenda to address them; and conclude with recommendations designed to operationalize that agenda and make equal educational opportunity a reality for each and every child in the United States.
Lewis, T. (2013). Reversing the Rising Tide of Inequality: Achieving Educational Equity for Each and Every Child. The Leadership Conference Education Fund
This report commemorates the fifth anniversary of the Getting Down to Facts project, which sought to provide a thorough and reliable analysis of the critical challenges facing California’s education system as the necessary basis for an informed discussion of policy changes aimed at improving the performance of California schools and students. The report focuses on the four key issues that received emphasis in the Getting Down to Facts studies: governance, finance, personnel, and data systems.
Loeb, S. (2013). Getting Down to Facts: Five Years Later Policy Analysis for California Education
This report examines how local school district funding is allocated in a way that hurts poor and minority students. The four papers include: (1) the history of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and its comparability provision, (2) the unexpected consequences of the comparability provision in practice, (3) the ways in which Title I might be fixed, and (4) the ways in which those fixes might be implemented with positive results.
McClure, P., Wiener, R., Roza, M., Hill, M. (2008) Ensuring Equal Opportunity in Public Education The Broad Fouundation
This special CEP report highlights findings about the critical element of school climate from case studies of the first year and half of SIG implementation in Maryland, Michigan, and Idaho.
McMurrer, J. (2012). Changing the School Climate Is the First Step to Reform in Many Schools with Federal Improvement Grants. Center on Education Policy.
This research seeks to provide policy makers with some hard information on the costs of teacher turnover. The goal is to develop an average dollar cost per vacancy, which could also be converted to a percent of payroll, in order to compare to the rules of thumb mentioned
above.
Milanowski, A. T., & Odden, A. R. (2007). A new approach to the cost of teacher turnover. Working Paper 13. Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington. Retrieved from https://www.crpe.org/sites/default/files/wp_sfrp13_milanowskiodden_aug08_0.pdf
This study provides evidence that student-weighted allocation can be a means toward greater resource equity among schools within districts. Resource equity is defined here in per-pupil needs-weighted fiscal terms.
Miles, K. H., & Roza, M. (2006). Understanding student-weighted allocation as a means to greater school resource equity. Peabody Journal of Education, 81(3), 39-62.
The authors trace the district's process of moving to a system of student-based budgeting:
funding children rather than staff members and weighting the funding according to schools'
and students' needs.
Miles, K. H., Ware, K., & Roza, M. (2003). Leveling the playing field: Creating funding equity through student-based budgeting. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(2), 114-119.
This paper addresses one key driver of spending variation between schools: shared district resources.
Miller, L. J., Roza, M., & Swartz, C. (2004). A cost allocation model for shared district resources: A means for comparing spending across schools. Developments in school finance, 69.
This report analyzes funding inequities in the context of four formulas that determine the amounts and destinations of grants under Title I, Part A. States with small populations and low concentrations of poor children receive radically larger grants on a per-poor-child basis than states with larger populations, including those with substantial rural poverty. Children living in concentrated poverty are poorly served by a labyrinthine funding scheme comprising four separate formulas. This paper exposes the technical considerations that should inform a smarter, fairer approach to funding grants under Title I, Part A
Miller, R. (2009). Secret recipes revealed: Demystifying the Title I, Part A funding formulas. Washington: Center for American Progress.
This report provides a new perspective on the nation’s largest virtual school provider through a systematic review and analysis of student characteristics, school finance, and school performance of K12-operated schools.
Miron, G., & Urschel, J. L. (2012). Understanding and improving full-time virtual schools: A study of student characteristics, school finance, and school performance in schools operated by K12, Inc. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED533960.pdf
This analysis provides an overview of funding equity by race and poverty concentration across states the funding disparities across the nation and within states. It finds that nationally, the highest poverty districts receive about $1,200 less per student than the lowest poverty districts. The differences are even larger–roughly $2,000 per student–among districts serving the most and the fewest students of color.
Natasha Ushomirsky and David Williams. (2015). Funding Gaps 2015: Too Many States Still Spend Less on Educating Students Who Need the Most. The Education Trust.
This synthesis is described under the rubric of functional outcome analysis (FOA) and is organized around an examination of classroom resources. Various methods of assessing intervention costs and benefits, as well as their distribution, are described.
Noell, G. H., & Gresham, F. M. (1993). Functional outcome analysis: Do the benefits of consultation and prereferral intervention justify the costs?. School Psychology Quarterly, 8(3), 200.
Good news coming from the Ohio Department of Education that the long-awaited Charter School program (CSP) grant funds will be soon available. However, the bad news is based on the announced criteria, hardly anyone will qualify for the money.
O'Leary, J. D. (2017). Will anyone even qualify for the much-debated federal charter school program grant?. Fordham Institute. Retrieved from https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/will-anyone-even-qualify-much-debated-federal-charter-school-program-grant
This paper examines school costs in relationship to student outcomes.
Odden. A. (2008). CPRE’s School Finance Research: Fifteen Years of Findings. Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of historical trends in the funding of special education programs, to discuss current issues, and to consider alternative directions for the future
Parrish, T. B. (1996). Special Education Finance: Past, Present, and Future. Policy Paper Number 8.
This report focuses on three specific challenges that are often encountered when districts–especially small ones–grapple with the costs of serving their highest-need special-education students.
Richmond, M., Fairchild, D. (2013). Financing the Education of High-Need Students Thomas B. Fordham Institute
This report analyzes the disparity in funding and resources in K-12 education for children of color and low-income families. It found that millions of students–largely low-income students and students of color–continue to attend segregated and economically isolated schools. State and district school finance systems perpetuate and compound these inequities by providing less money to students with the greatest need.
Robert Hanna, Max Marchitello, Catherine Brown (2015). Comparable but Unequal- School Funding Disparities. Center for American Progress.
Governor Brown has proposed a new funding system–known as a weighted pupil formula–that would direct more revenue to California school districts serving many economically disadvantaged students. This report examines the relationship between funding and student disadvantage and addresses questions about converting the current school finance system to a weighted pupil formula.
Rose, H., & Weston, M. (2013). California School District Revenue and Student Poverty Moving Toward a Weighted Pupil Funding Formula.
The authors use research-based "impact modeling" to show how a strategic approach to recruiting and supporting rookie teachers could yield as much as 4.2 extra months of student learning. We provide 5 recommendations for school systems to leverage their investment in structures that provide rookie teachers with both shelter and development.
Rosenberg, D., & Miles, K.H. (2018). Growing Great Teachers: How School System Leaders Can Use Existing Resources to Better Develop, Support, and Retain New Teachers--and Improve Student Outcomes. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED593368.pdf
This document presents the first results of a series of studies on within-district spending patterns. It provides an overview of some early analysis of variations in spending among schools within three unnamed school districts.
Roza, M. (2002). A New Look at Inequities in School Funding: A Presentation on the Resource Variations within Districts.
This paper focuses on one aspect of district spending ambiguity, namely, differences in per-pupil spending masked by teacher salary cost averaging.
Roza, M., Hill, P. T., Sclafani, S., & Speakman, S. (2004). How within-district spending inequities help some schools to fail. Brookings papers on education policy, (7), 201-227.
This article presents an example of how school time was monitored to facilitate a cost analysis of school-wide systems of positive behavior support (PBS).
Scott, T. M., & Barrett, S. B. (2004). Using staff and student time engaged in disciplinary procedures to evaluate the impact of school-wide PBS. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 6(1), 21-27.
This paper examines the issue of education equity by analyzing per-pupil state and local education spending. Using U.S. Department of Education school-level expenditure data that includes real teacher salaries, the paper concludes: (1) Students of color are being shortchanged across the country when compared to their white peers. (2) The traditional explanation–that variation in schools’ per-pupil spending stems almost entirely from different property-tax bases between school districts–is inaccurate as approximately 40 percent of variation in per-pupil spending occurs within school districts. (3) Changing a particular provision of federal education law–closing the so-called comparability loophole–would result in districts making more equitable expenditures on students of color.
Spatig-Amerikaner, A. (2012). Unequal Education: Federal Loophole Enables Lower Spending on Students of Color. Center for American Progress.
This analysis examined the cost effectiveness of research from Stuart Yeh on common sturctural interventions in education. Additionally, The Wing Institute analyzes class-size reduction using Yeh's methods.
States, J. (2009). How does class size reduction measure up to other common educational interventions in a cost-benefit analysis? Retrieved from how-does-class-size.
This research brief provide an introductory overview of the cost of implementation of SWPBIS, as a school-wide approach to reduce suspensions, compared to the cost of school dropout.
Swain-Bradway, J., Lindstrom Johnson, S., Bradshaw, C., & McIntosh, K. (2017). What are the economic costs of implementing SWPBIS in comparison to the benefits from reducing suspensions. PBIS evaluation brief). Eugene, OR: OSEP TA Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.
The purpose of this study was to develop a model that may be used to estimate the financial costs of teacher turnover in urban school districts.
Synar, E., & Maiden, J. (2012). A comprehensive model for estimating the financial impact of teacher turnover. Journal of Education Finance, 130-144.
This paper of American United States school finances finds evidence to support the importance of providing equitable funding across school districts. These results have important policy implications and suggest areas for future research.
This paper of American United States school finances finds evidence to support the importance of providing equitable funding across school districts. These results have important policy implications and suggest areas for future research.
This report analyzes the inequities of the current school finance models and proposes adoption of a model called Weighted Student Funding. It is a system of school funding based on five principles: (1) Funding should follow the child, on a per-student basis, to the public school that he/she attends; (2) Per-student funding should vary according to the child's need and other relevant circumstances; (3) It should arrive at the school as real dollars (4) These principles for allocating money to schools should apply to all levels; and (5) Funding systems should be simplified and made transparent.
Thomas, B. (2009). Fordham Institute. 2006. Fund the child: Tackling inequity and antiquity in school finance.
Presented are 12 author contributed chapters which developed out of an invisible college of leaders concerned with providing services to the severely, profoundly, and multiply handicappe
Thomas, M. A. (1976). Hey! Don't Forget About Me! Education's Investment in the Severely, Profoundly, and Multiply Handicapped.
The purpose of this study is to examine the costs of replacing high school principals.
Tran, H., McCormick, J., & Nguyen, T. T. (2018). The cost of replacing South Carolina high school principals. Management in Education, 32(3), 109–118.
The study design was a declarative exposition of potential fallacies in the theoretical underpinnings of Cost-Effective Analysis (CFA).
Ubel, P. A., Nord, E., Gold, M., Menzel, P., Prades, J. L. P., & Richardson, J. (2000). Improving value measurement in cost-effectiveness analysis. Medical Care, 38(9), 892-901.
This report highlight suggestions from Nora Gordon report "Increasing Targeting, Flexibility, and Transparency in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to Help Disadvantaged Students.". The paper argues that effective local decisions about spending Title I funds have the biggest "bang for the buck", but that Washington and the states can do better to help locals make better decisions without running afoul of the grants program's requirements.
Ujifusa, A. (2016). Better Uses for Federal Aid to Low-Income Students Studied in New Report. Education Week. Retrieved from https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2016/03/title_i_changes_to_help_low_income_students.html
This paper argues that ineffective practices in schools carry a high price for consumers and suggests that school systems consider the measurable yield in terms of gains in student achievement for their schooling effort.
VanDerHeyden, A. (2013). Are we making the differences that matter in education. In R. Detrich, R. Keyworth, & J. States (Eds.),Advances in evidence-‐based education: Vol 3(pp. 119–138). Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. Retrieved from http://www.winginstitute.org/uploads/docs/Vol3Ch4.pdf
This study describes a benefit-cost analysis of a comprehensive mentoring program for beginning teachers conducted in a medium-sized California school district.
Villar, A., & Strong, M. (2007). Is mentoring worth the money? A benefit-cost analysis and fiveyear rate of return of a comprehensive mentoring program for beginning teachers. ERS Spectrum, 25(3), 1-17.
The purpose of this study was to document system-of-care development following the receipt of federal funds to establish and support a system of care, and to assess the extent to which system-of-care principles were realized
Vinson, N. B., Brannan, A. M., Baughman, L. N., Wilce, M., & Gawron, T. (2001). The system-of-care model: Implementation in twenty-seven communities. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 9(1), 30-42.
The authors measure the impact of replacing these principals on school-wide student achievement by measuring the changes in achievement that occurred when principals were replaced, and comparing these changes to achievement in comparison schools within DCPS that kept the same principal
Walsh, E., & Dotter, D. (2019). The impact of replacing principals on student achievement in DC public schools. Education Finance and Policy, 1–53.
The cost of teacher turnover to schools and school districts has only recently been studied. This research reveals that when high-quality teachers leave the classroom, the effect on both student performance and school and district fiscal operations is significant and deleterious.
Watlington, E., Shockley, R., Guglielmino, P., & Felsher, R. (2010). The cost of leaving: An analysis of the cost of teacher turnover. Journal of Education Finance, 36(1), 22–37.
This international study examines the impact of teacher performance pay on student math, science, and reading achievement.
Woessmann, L. (2011). Cross-country evidence on teacher performance pay. Economics of Education Review, 30(3), 404-418.
This study compares the effect size and return on investment for rapid assessment, between, increased spending, voucher programs, charter schools, and increased accountability.
Yeh, S. S. (2007). The cost-effectiveness of five policies for improving student achievement. American Journal of Evaluation, 28(4), 416-436.
This article compares the relative cost-effectiveness of the five policies, using best-evidence estimates drawn from available data regarding the effectiveness and costs of rapid assessment, increased spending, voucher programs, charter schools, and accountability, using a conservative methodology for calculating the relative effectiveness of the rapid assessment.
Yeh, S. S. (2007). The cost-effectiveness of five policies for improving student achievement. American Journal of Evaluation, 28(4), 416-436.
The number of students taking Advanced Placement (AP) tests has grown to more than 2.5 million students annually. Overall test scores have remained relatively constant despite a 60% increase in the number of students taking AP exams since 2006. In school year 2015–16, 20% of students taking an AP test passed and were eligible for college credit. The College Board also reports a continuing trend in the significant increase in the number of low-income students participating in the program. Unfortunately, this trend may be negatively impacted by changes in funding. The federal grant program subsidizing AP tests for low-income students has been replaced by block grants in the Every Student Succeeds Act. These funds may still be applied to subsidize low-income populations but are not mandated for this purpose as in the past.
Zubrzycki, J. (2017). 1 in 5 Public School Students in the Class of 2016 Passed an AP Exam. Education Week.