On February 24, 2017, all of the authors of the state-of-the-state manuscripts published in the "Journal of Education Finance" met in Cincinnati, Ohio, to participate in a roundtable discussion focused on recent legislative actions in 38 states. A majority of those papers were revised to reflect a final report on legislative actions…

Districts across the country are facing severe shortages of teachers--especially in certain subjects (math, science, special education, career and technical education, and bilingual education) and in specific schools (urban, rural, high-poverty, high-minority, and low-achieving). The severity of the teacher shortage problem varies significantly by…

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to satisfy today's claimants in the here and now at the expense of long-term concerns. Teacher pensions, in particular, pose two challenges. The first is that political incentives invite irresponsible fiscal stewardship, as public officials make outsized short-term commitments to…

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to satisfy today's claimants in the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns. Rules and auditing standards are intended to tame this kind of short-sighted behavior in the private sector. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the hope that public officials will not be…

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to address today's claimants and focus on the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns and more dispersed constituencies. In the private sector, rules and regulations seek to tame corner-cutting and short-sighted behavior. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the…

Asset development is an emerging approach to promoting self-sufficiency for low-income workers. By promoting and rewarding savings, asset development strategies encourage individuals to set long-term economic goals. Asset development strategies can accomplish the following objectives: (1) give low-income workers the knowledge required to navigate…

Practitioner papers and research papers on higher education planning and budgeting are presented. "Before the Roof Caves In: A Predictive Model for Physical Plant Renewal" by Frederick M. Biedenweg and Robert E. Hutson outlines a systematic approach that was used at Stanford University to predict the associated costs of physical plant…