In the first article of this report, a discussion is presented of the increasing tensions between fiscal conservatives and education reformers. While educational equity is mandated by the federal government, states frequently have difficulty in complying with satisfactory programs because of growing resistance to taxes to support the schools.…

The third annual survey of the Illinois Rural Life Panel included questions on school taxes, improvements to strengthen local schools, satellite technology, extracurricular activities, and career opportunities after high school. Results from a sample of approximately 2,000 residents in the 76 Illinois nonmetropolitan counties included: (1) 54…

This paper analyzes Texas Senate Bill 351 that reforms public school funding. The bill provides for additional state funding and significant increases in local property taxes. The bill creates county education taxing units to neutralize the enormous property wealth differences found among the state's 1,056 school districts. It also provides a…

The goal of the doctoral dissertation summarized here was to find an equitable school finance plan that applied the same tax rate in all districts and resulted in the smallest variance in the expenditure per weighted pupil unit (WPU) between districts in Arizona for the 1971-72 school year. Six finance plans were developed for analysis and were…

Citizens' attitudes and opinions toward higher education are discussed, based on the results of several public opinion surveys. Before the mid-1970s little research on public opinions and attitudes toward postsecondary education was conducted in the United States. Since 1975 several states have conducted such surveys, and in 1982 the first…

The analytical problems faced by gross interstate comparisons of higher education funding are reviewed, the overall usefulness to decision-makers of interstate comparisons, and other approaches to comparative analysis are considered. It is claimed that the usefulness of gross interstate comparisons is limited, since both technical and structural…

This report summarizes the proposed budgets for U.S. public elementary and secondary education for fiscal year 1998 and describes the budgets and the major factors that influence those budgets. It is the second in a series of "State Fiscal Briefs" on education finance by the Center for the Study of the States. The report is primarily based on…

This theme issue newsletter includes five articles on the theme of the coordinated, efficient, and equitable use of funds in educational programming. "A Successful Coordination of Funds and Programs Approach: Four Dimensions of the School Restructuring Process" (Abelardo Villarreal, Oanh H. Maroney) examines the interrelatedness of four…

This special bulletin examines the Texas Supreme Court's January 1995 final opinion in the Edgewood vs. Meno case, the latest in a series of rulings on the constitutionality of the Texas public school funding system. The first article summarizes the majority opinion, discusses the implications of the court's 5-4 ruling, and suggests that further…