This document compiles several studies on educational finance, including "Federal Aid to Education: Who Benefits?""The Financial Aspects of Equality of Educational Opportunity," and "Legislator's Guide for School Finance." Also included are two briefs filed in the San Antonio vs Rodriguez case and a listing of current…

This analysis provides an overview of the educational finance problem, particularly as it relates to property tax burdens and equality of education. It also describes some systems of State funding and outlines and evaluates possible solutions to the finance problem. Some of these solutions include (1) increased Federal aid, (2) a local nonproperty…

This paper describes funding formulas for the new Foundation School Program in Texas enacted under the Education Opportunity Act (H.B. 72), raises issues that have accompanied its first year of implementation, and provides preliminary data to compare prior and existing law. The state finance system, which previously distributed state aid according…

This publication presents comprehensive, comparative expenditure data by local school system for the whole United States for the 1969-70 year and compares four decades of progress in school finance. The analysis in the document permits a view of State and national progress toward reducing or eliminating financial inequality and of the magnitude of…

After tracing the historical development of its present school finance system, the author considers Minnesota's school finance court cases and the finance disparities among its local school districts that led the 1971 legislature to increase State aid given to local school districts for maintenance expenditures. The document reviews the…

The conceptual differences between the foundation program and educational needs approaches to the distribution of school funds are analyzed. Under the foundation approach, the state generally guarantees that, irrespective of local wealth, every child will have a minimum number of dollars expended on his education. In operation, the foundation…

This article examines disparities in spending and number of employees in North Carolina's school administrative units relative to per capita income in these units. It suggests that North Carolina has been more successful than most states in reducing disparities between low- and high-income units. Six graphs are provided. (DCS)

The Serrano case controversy raises the fundamental question: Do differences in school district per pupil expenditures represent cost differences incurred in providing essentially equivalent programs, or do they represent substantial differences in educational offerings? Although the answer is debatable, the California legislature increased…

In this landmark educational finance opinion (presented here in full) the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Texas case was not a proper case in which to examine a State's laws under standards of strict judicial scrutiny. That test, according to the Court, is reserved for cases involving laws that operate to the disadvantage of suspect classes or…

Wide scale reform in Texas education financing was enacted in 1984 under the Equal Education Opportunity Act (Texas House Bill 72). This paper examines the reform through an analysis of the newly enacted weighted pupil Foundation School Program (FSP) during the 1985-86 school year. Two modes of inquiry were used: correlational analysis between…

An essential prerequisite to reform of present methods of financing elementary and secondary schools and the development of an equitable, adequate, and workable system of school finance is a precise understanding of how the existing system works and its impact on different school districts and population groups. This report documents the existing…

This report presents an analysis of Illinois' present educational finance system and makes recommendations for future legislation to improve the system. The report discusses (1) State constitutional provisions, (2) the present tax structure and alternative taxing methods, (3) proposed distribution formulas and equalization methods, (4) financing…