Career and technical education (CTE) is increasingly seen as a major potential contributor to the recovery of the U.S. economy. However, the effectiveness and impact of the current Carl D. Perkins Act (otherwise known as Perkins IV) that governs CTE are unclear. Is the federal investment in CTE paying off? To answer this, we need to establish the…

Almost 7 million young Americans (age 16-24) are insufficiently attached to school or work. Based on conservative estimates, we can generate over $1 billion just by helping a mere 0.1 percent earn a high school credential and complete their first year of college through Back on Track Designs. This brief lays out the cost of setting up these GED-…

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…

Uses state-collected data and microlevel indicators to examine the allocation of professional staff across elementary, secondary, and administrative schooling levels and program areas within New York State. Case studies of four districts were constructed around a distinction between disposition and utilization of teaching resources. There are…

Cost-saving ideas and strategies for school districts are presented. Superintendents, school business officials, assistant superintendents of personnel and union leaders at 41 of Long Island's 125 school districts responded to a survey soliciting information about successful ideas and strategies they had used to keep cost down. They described what…

Rethinks the use of teachers, a school's most expensive and important resource. Four categories could benefit from restructuring: teacher and aide allocation/assignment, teacher compensation, student support services, and general and special program administration. Middletown, New York, actually improved its student:teacher ratio by using its…

In recent years, an increasing number of districts have turned to district education foundations (DEF) for added fiscal support. Similar in many ways to university development offices, DEFs are privately operated, nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations that solicit funds from individuals and businesses and then distribute these funds to public school…

Assesses effects of five large city school districts' fiscal dependence on educational spending in New York State. Results suggest that spending levels may be systematically lower in fiscally dependent districts. Recommends re-aligning resource allocation and school governance responsibilities and using matching grants to reduce spending…

Examines distance education's efficacy in nine New York school districts affiliated with Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). Distance education enables small rural schools to expand their curriculum. Districts vary in utilizing distance education. Distance-education courses cost considerably more to offer than traditional courses.…

Generally, construction projects undertaken by school districts in New York State are financed in part by state aid. The Education Department's Facilities Planning unit approves state aid for school-district construction projects outside New York City. This report presents findings of an audit that evaluated whether the Unit management's oversight…

Despite a decade of reform efforts, important policy questions concerning the efficiency and equity of the current financing system remain unanswered. This paper examines New York State fiscal and educational outcome data for 1985/86 through 1989/90. Data are presented for school district expenditures and teacher salaries; local revenue bases and…

This article seeks to address the challenge of activating the seven educational resources, ordered by Justice Leland DeGrasse in the case "Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) v. State of New York," into effective teaching and learning methods, and mobilize the constructs advanced by the improved school finance framework as an analytical…

The education problems in New York City (and a number of other jurisdictions that face court financing challenges) are real and important. Many people would indeed be willing to put more money into New York City schools (or any poorly performing school for that matter) if they had any reason to believe that students' achievement would improve…

Conventional research dealing with education finance in general and resource allocation in particular has focused on the raising of revenues at federal, state, and local levels and the subsequent apportionment of these resources across schooling systems, typically school districts. Concern about productivity and equity, however, cannot be…