Background: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) constituted a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. ESSA, although still recognizing the need of standardized testing, diverged from NCLB by transferring a significant amount of power over…

State funding for public higher education institutions is crucial in supporting college access and completion, particularly among students from historically under-represented groups, yet little is known about the mechanisms that states use to allocate funds and how they are affected by financial challenges. This article provides the first detailed…

The New York State Board of Regents' 2004-05 State Aid Proposal put forward the idea of instituting Foundation Aid as a response to concerns about the sufficiency of state education funding then being provided to local school districts. In 2007, prompted by legal action, a call for reform by the Regents, and the election of a new governor with a…

This paper studies how school spending impacts student achievement by exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation as state tax revenue shocks. Leveraging school finance data from universal school districts, our difference-in-differences estimation reveals that deregulation leads to an increase in per-pupil total revenue and expenditure.…

This study's aim was to examine the impact of pandemic emergency Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS) payments on the continuity and security of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Using a multilevel logistic regression, we analyzed secondary Personal Outcome Measures interviews from 738 people with IDD (March 2020…

This paper asks whether increasing public school funding can be an effective long-run crime-prevention strategy in the U.S. Specifically, we examine the effect of increases in funding early in children's lives on the likelihood that they are arrested as adults. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in public school funding, leveraging two…

At their best, K-12 public school systems can be engines of social and economic mobility. Unfortunately, schools in lower-income districts -- whose students have the greatest academic needs -- often receive less funding than their counterparts in more affluent districts. Discussions about closing these funding gaps usually zoom all the way out to…

"Making the Grade 2021" analyzes the condition of public school funding in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Using the most recently available data from the 2018-19 school year, the report ranks and grades each state on three measures to answer the key question: How fair is school funding in your state? The three fairness…

School finance debates frequently turn on two crucial questions: (1) How much do state and local governments spend on K-12 education?; and (2) How are education dollars distributed across jurisdictions? This focus makes sense because the answers to these questions determine how well states are able to provide an adequate, equal education for all…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), most recently comprehensively amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; P.L. 114-95), is the primary source of federal aid to support elementary and secondary education. The Title I-A program is the largest grant program authorized under the ESEA and was funded at $16.5 billion for FY2021.…

The correlation between socioeconomic status and academic achievement does not just apply to individual students--the concentration of poverty in schools matters, too. Schools with concentrated poverty require more state funding in order to best serve their students. But it is not just about how much; to be equitable, states must spend enough…

Between March 2020 and March 2021, the federal government distributed an unprecedented amount of money to American public schools to address the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. About $6 billion was distributed in three waves to the state of Michigan alone. This report uses data provided by districts to the state government to analyze how…

A 50-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products has been endorsed by California voters to fund early childhood services under Proposition 10, California Children and Families First Act of 1998. In compliance with the legislative requirement of Result-Based Accountability (RBA) on revenue spending, this report delineates evaluation…

This article contributes to our understanding of American education politics by exploring when and why states redistribute K-12 education dollars to poorer schools. It does so by examining three explanations for intrastate changes in progressivity: court-ordered finance reforms, political trends, and demographic changes. Using state-level data…

Operating revenue for public higher education is derived from several sources, such as state appropriations, tuition, room and board, and contracts. State funding in particular constitutes a large share of revenue and is consequently critical for improving enrollment, completion, and labor market outcomes. However, states differ in how…