In times of financial crises, it is crucial to understand how district leaders prioritize spending to ensure an adequate and equitable education for all students. This paper examines how districts in Alabama altered spending during the Great Recession. Results demonstrate that expenditure cuts were more intense for high needs student populations,…

School districts increasingly rely on weighted student funding (WSF), yet there is little research on this allocation model. This study collects more than 70 measures on each of 19 districts using WSF in 2018 for a landscape analysis of formula features and implementation practices. While districts report common reasons for adopting WSF (equity,…

This research brief explores why "projection estimates" are not an effective approach to budget planning by comparing past projections to CUPA-HR's database of real-world salaries. The results shed light on why data-informed and data-driven decisions are a more effective way to think about budget planning. In this brief you'll learn…

While state appropriations are the largest revenue source of the U.S. public university systems, they have declined significantly over the past several decades. Surprisingly, there is little empirical work on the effect of state appropriation cuts on the research productivity of public universities. Helping fill that gap, this paper is the first…

The spring 2018 teacher strikes or walkouts in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, and North Carolina brought heightened attention to teacher compensation. Similar walk-outs, sick-outs, or strikes occurred early 2019 in Denver, Los Angeles, and Oakland, as well as West Virginia and Kentucky. In all of these actions, teachers were…

California had a long tradition of very low tuition for students enrolled in public higher education. The state broke with that policy in the 2000s, when recessions resulted in significant cuts to state funding for public colleges and universities--the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and California's community…

This paper examines the effects of declining student enrolment and population loss on one rural school district in the United States, as well as the district's strategies to mitigate these effects. In the state of Wisconsin, the relationship between student enrolment and school funding destabilises rural school districts experiencing population…

Decreasing government funding and regulated tuition policies have created a financially constrained environment for Canada's universities. The conventional response to such conditions is to cut programme offerings and services in an attempt to lower costs throughout the institution. However, we argue that three Canadian universities have reacted…

With public school budgets pinched and educational demands rising, "business as usual" is becoming less and less tenable in American schools. Taxpayers, parents, teachers, principals, and students are expected to do more with fewer resources. But what's the best way to go about slimming down and shaping up the system of public education?…

When the Connecticut State Department of Education published its first district report cards in 2003, it was obvious that the Hartford Public Schools district was struggling. Fewer than half of its students were proficient on the state reading exam. Math performance was better, but 63 percent of 10th-graders and 43 percent of younger students…

The approach taken by Virginia to analyze and establish policy for college and university administrator salaries, as they relate to other institutions and to the salaries of instructional faculty, is outlined. A methodology felt to be appropriate for this analysis, tested on eight institutions, is described and illustrated. (MSE)

This survey attempts to: (1) determine salaries being paid to the incumbents of 46 selected professional administrative positions in higher education; (2) determine the nature and dollar value of noncash and total compensation afforded 30 of the 46 reported positions; (3) investigate the compensation relationships among positions and between…

Data from the 1980 Brazilian Census is used to investigate the issue of whether teachers are overpaid. Human capital and other worker characteristics were standardized and compared. Results are presented, and cautions regarding using teacher salary cuts to balance budgets are offered. (MT)

Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are trying to make their proposed goal of universal primary education a reality. Given the budgetary constraints it is natural to seek to increase efficiency and to reduce the cost of inputs. Teachers' salaries account for over 90 percent of the primary school recurrent budget. Therefore, the analysis of…

Reports an improved methodology for estimating teacher salary costs well in advance of the fiscal year. The Markov approach, based on probabilistic techniques, provided a more accurate prediction of school district personnel costs than did the traditional deterministic technique for the budget year studied. Includes four tables and nine…