Many states are looking at effective ways to use financial incentives to encourage students to complete a postsecondary credential. JFF's new report, "Statewide Aid Policies to Improve College Access and Success", originally commissioned by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education's Vision Project, has provided valuable…

In 1994, Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative that transferred the power in Michigan's education system from local communities to the state. Proposal A succeeded in slowing the growth of local property taxes and narrowing the gap between the richest and poorest districts in Michigan. However, due to a decade of sluggish economic growth,…

Despite nearly two decades of commissions, analyses, op-eds and speeches, a series of court rulings, legislative changes, and the expenditure of billions of dollars, Ohio still does not have a school funding system that delivers the results the Buckeye State needs. Student achievement still remains low for the globalizing world that young Ohioans…

Since the Family and Children's Services Block Grant and the per diem rate methodology have not been effective, especially in the wake of the increasing number of children entering foster care, this policy brief explores ways in which New York State's child welfare system should allocate child welfare dollars to counties and providers to produce…

Discusses the relationships between special education programs and their costs, as well as the primary funding formulas used for special education, policy issues affected by the funding formulas, and the potential incentives and disincentives of the various funding formulas. Looks at the effects of the approach taken in P.L. 94-142. (Author/IRT)

Although California schools are experiencing cutbacks, the cause may be declining enrollment rather than Proposition 13. A less debatable result of Proposition 13 is greater state control of education's purse strings. (Author/JM)

The best kind of performance-based funding system is that which encourages and rewards good practice. Any state incentive program should encourage colleges and universities to develop a comprehensive database, conduct more and better talent development assessments, increase student-faculty contact, and increase student involvement in learning.…

New approaches to allocating state resources to colleges are discussed. Budgeting and resource allocation principles are considered that: (1) reflect the unique context of higher education; (2) are consistent with sound budgeting and management principles; and (3) represent institutional mechanisms applied at the state level rather than approaches…

Property tax relief for the Illinois taxpayer, predicated on full state funding of elementary education, is advocated in this paper. A consequence of full state funding is the reduction of property taxes for education and creation of an educational income tax. Effects at the elementary level are equity and adequacy; at the secondary level, school…

Federal, State, and private entities combined efforts and deliberately created this country's dual racial system of higher education. This dual system is characterized by distinctions in the racial composition of students and faculty, and by more salient and inequitable distinctions in patterns of funding, growth, and development. Black colleges…

Offers a set of criteria for evaluating the impact of state funding plans on the diversity of a college's mission; educational quality, outcomes, and effectiveness; educational access and equity; and "fair share" divisions of resources. Considers alternatives to enrollment-based funding. (DMM)

This paper examines trends in the support of public higher education versus that for prisons in New York State over the last decade and concludes that the dramatic rise in funding for prison expansion has come at the expense of higher education. The paper notes that (1) since fiscal year 1988, operating budgets at New York's public universities…

Presents a general methodology that may be used by states in the design of municipal overburden provisions for their educational aid programs. (RLV)

Claims that increasingly, decisions about whether or how resources will be allocated to young children and families will be made at the state level. Explores the questions answered by the policy document, "Map and Track: State Initiatives for Young Children and Families," and the significance of these questions. Highlights findings and…

Recent developments in school finance litigation are described in this document, which examines the legal bases for school finance challenges and the nature of the inequities that plaintiffs seek to prove. The first section summarizes the legal theories upon which the challenges have been based. Section 2 focuses upon plaintiffs' arguments in the…