Targeted school funding is a potentially valuable policy lever to increase educational equality by race, ethnicity, and income, but it remains unclear how to target funds most effectively. We use a regression discontinuity approach to compare districts that narrowly passed or failed a school funding election. We use close tax elections in 9 states…

Despite massive cuts in state funding over the past thirty years, the University of California has managed to keep enrollment on pace with growth in population. With California's population projected to grow 22.5 percent (from 40 to 49 million by 2040), that will no longer be the case, unless UC is able to find a new funding model. Informed by the…

Examining resource allocation practices, including savings, of charter schools is critical to understanding their financial viability and sustainability. Using 9 years of finance data from California, we find charter schools spend less on instruction and pupil support services than traditional public schools. The lower spending on instruction and…

The author reports on the reigning economic calculus that helps to drive constant expansion and poor utilization of space on many campuses. The author states that colleges could charge for utilities, which might encourage departments to save energy. Most American colleges do not charge for space--in part because doing so would raise the hackles of…

This Analysis Brief shows how per-pupil spending varies with student poverty (as measured by the percent of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch) across elementary, middle, and high schools in Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). The authors have carried out separate analyses that make use of the California Standardized Account…

The economic outlook may be sour for Wall Street's investment banks and for homeowners who took out mortgages they could not really afford, but campus planners and architects say that--so far, at least--colleges' construction plans are largely unaffected by the downturn. Some colleges, in fact, are trying to speed up projects to limit the damage…

The latest installment of the Fordham Institute's "Creating Sound Policy for Digital Learning" series investigates one of the more controversial aspects of digital learning: How much does it cost? In this paper, the Parthenon Group uses interviews with more than fifty vendors and online-schooling experts to estimate today's average…

As a starting point for their analysis of equity, the authors begin their work here with an examination of the relationship between student performance, as measured by the California Academic Performance Index (API), and student needs, as measured by the percentage of students from low-income families (i.e., the percent of students eligible for…

Using fiscal data provided by the finance office of the school district, and personnel data obtained from the California Basic Education Data System maintained by the California Department of Education (CDE), the authors present analyses to provide a foundation for local policymakers that may be used to assess whether there are inequities in the…

University administrators are increasingly required to manage budget cuts. California officials have considerable experience with one form of cut known as forced savings - a state-imposed requirement to underspend appropriated measures. (Editor/PG)

To evaluate the adequacy and efficiency of preschool education, the RAND Corporation has undertaken the California Preschool Study to improve understanding of achievement gaps in the early elementary grades, the adequacy of preschool education currently given, and what efficiencies or additional resources might be brought to bear in early care and…

The new budget and accounting system for the California community colleges uses an activity-centered approach to expenditure reporting which describes real resource requirements (faculty, supporting staff, supplies, etc.), their costs (objects of expenditures), and relative use in each of the major activities which describe community college…

This study involved the development and use of a cost model to assess the economic consequences of the introduction of a year-round school (YRS) program. The cost model has two components. First, a comprehensive accounting procedure details the costs unique to a year-round calendar and estimates the costs that would have been incurred if the…

Education Resource Strategies (ERS) works with school and district leaders to help them more strategically use resources--people, time, and money--to improve student performance. They have found that many school districts begin creating small high schools without a clear sense of how much they will spend or how to ensure that small schools…

A project was undertaken to develop a model for establishing normative costs and budget guidelines for California's community colleges. The model was developed using adaptations of microcomputer software and tested using data from the Chancellor's Office of the California Community Colleges and from the Marin Community College District (MCCD).…