This report provides a first-of-its-kind descriptive summary of private school expenditures. It includes comparisons of expenditures among different types and affiliations of private schools, and it also compares those expenditures with public school expenditures for districts in the same state and labor market. Results indicate that (1) the…

The goal of this study is to simultaneously explore resource allocation across schools within large urban school districts and across all schools within major metropolitan areas that include those urban districts in the state of Texas. This study uses a three-year panel, from 2005 to 2007, for Texas elementary schools in the Houston, Dallas,…

The goal of this study is to apply a conventional education cost-function approach for estimating the sensitivity of cost models and predicted education costs to the inclusion of school district level racial composition variables and further to test whether race neutral alternatives sufficiently capture the additional costs associated with school…

This article proposes a general conception of educational adequacy and draws on a lengthy history of economic theory and emerging empirical evidence to support that conception. The author reviews empirical methods for measuring educational adequacy and synthesizes findings from a number of recent studies of the cost of an adequate education. He…

This study examined the administrative expenditures of a group of universities, the Research I Universities (RU1) (the designation of the Carnegie classification scheme before 2000), the most comprehensive and research-intensive universities in the United States. The study explored the expenditure patterns of universities new to the RU1…

This article introduces a set of policy tools for measuring outcomes of gifted education policies and applies these tools to data on the distribution of Texas gifted education spending. Results indicate continued vast inequities across school districts and unacceptable correlations among student population characteristics, community wealth, and…

Discusses the use of dynamic systems modeling in the field of school finance policy. Provides detailed description of the use of computer-based systems-modeling simulations to New Jersey school finance equity problems. (Contains 37 references.) (PKP)

Discusses the concept of vertical equity and the measurement of resource adequacy for gifted children; reviews state policies for financing programs and services for gifted children; analyzes state-aid allocation policies (implicit vertical equity) for gifted children; compares vertical equitable opportunities for gifted children across districts…

Characterizes resource-allocation patterns across states and across districts within states using data on financial allocations to estimate the relationship between differences in state aid allocation policies and practices, district financial and demographic influences, and district-level allocation of financial and human resources. (Contains 46…

The authors construct and respond to several questions about changing administrative costs for new Research I Universities, a group of institutions that might be expected to incur new costs as a result of their new status. Using IPEDS data, the study provides mixed support for the claim that universities reaching the pinnacle of research…

This article provides an overview of state finance polices for gifted education and frameworks for evaluating those policies. The frameworks are then applied for evaluating state school finance policies as of 1998-99 and state aid allocated in 2002. Only Florida provided both sufficient and equitable support for gifted education. (Contains…

Analyzes the effects of 1997 Vermont school-finance reform legislation (Act 60) to resolve taxpayer inequity and disparity in per-pupil spending. Identifies shortcomings in Act 60 and suggests that alternative school-finance reform proposals such as Education Revenue Sharing may help legislators remedy some of these shortcomings. (PKP)

This article discusses the tricks of the trade that legislatures in formerly de jure segregated states might use to maintain racial funding disparities in existence before Brown and whether such ploys might be vulnerable to legal challenges. The first section provides an overview of modern school finance formulas and explains how legislatures in…

Recent studies that purport to estimate the costs of constitutionally adequate education have been described as either a "gold standard" that should guide legislative school finance policy design and judicial evaluation, or as pure "alchemy." Methods for estimating the cost of constitutionally adequate education can be roughly…

A study analyzed state funding policies for serving limited English proficient (LEP) students and related patterns of state aid allocations to school districts. State efforts were often poorly conceived or applied, and often inadequate. Only New Jersey and Florida met all study criteria for adequacy, "rationality," and equity of funding,…