This special bulletin examines the Texas Supreme Court's January 1995 final opinion in the Edgewood vs. Meno case, the latest in a series of rulings on the constitutionality of the Texas public school funding system. The first article summarizes the majority opinion, discusses the implications of the court's 5-4 ruling, and suggests that further…

California is under court order (Serrano v. Priest) to revise the system of financing public elementary and secondary education. Initial analysis had predicted that a shift to statewide taxation would result in greater educational resources at a lower tax cost for lower income families and fewer resources at a higher tax cost for wealthier…

This report is a response to the Governor's Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2003-04 for the state of New York. The report begins with an introduction, which attacks the budget, particularly in light of "NCLB schools and districts" (NCLB schools and districts are those designated by the New York State Education Department [NYSED] in need…

This report presents data on budgets, levies, enrollments, costs per pupil, and teacher salaries in Montana's smallest (Class "C") school districts for fiscal year 1999-2000. Survey responses were received from 78 of the 94 public schools and 2 of the 5 nonpublic schools in the Class C category. The range of Class C enrollments was…

Using statistical data, this paper analyzes methods for educational finance in Ontario that provide alternatives to present fiscal inequalities. There are currently five barriers to equity: the lack of directly comparable measures of local tax-paying ability, the extremes in unit equalized assessment caused by the large number of school…

This study analyzes the possible relationships of real property assessment practices in Mississippi school districts to quality education as measured by (1) expenditures per pupil, (2) teachers' salaries, (3) teachers' professional training, (4) teachers' professional experience, (5) library expenditures per pupil, (6) teacher-pupil ratio, (7)…

This document begins by presenting a general summary of Iowa's current school finance law, which dates back to steps taken in 1967 by the 62nd General Assembly, and by providing a current state aid chronology, organized by year, general assembly number, session, bill, and major features. Subsequent sections provide descriptions of the following:…

The basic research design reported in this paper includes technical substudies of the principal factors that affect a State's school finance program. Factors considered in this document include educational need and cost differentials among school districts, State and local taxation, the cost of delivering education, public school personnel,…

This paper examines several major State finance revisions and the procedures used to analyze their impact on school district per pupil expenditures, State aid, and local tax rates in New York, Massachusetts, and California. Policy alternatives include utilization of measures of educational need, municipal overburden factors in the general formula,…

This book describes Nevada's system of education, its historical development, how the schools are organized and financed, what is taught, and who is qualified through what procedures to teach. Seven chapters cover the following subjects: (1) Nevada's natural resources--geography, climate, people, schools and countries and school enrollments; (2)…

The research reported in this document was undertaken to determine the relative costs of educating a child in a charter school and a traditional public school in Michigan. To assess the costs, the following research was done: a review of the laws that govern public schools in Michigan; a review of the statutes that govern the funding of public…

The Foundation Program, revamped by the 1986 South Dakota legislative session, provides a method of determining the state aid support to school districts. In addition, state aid is provided for separate special education funding and for tuition incentive funding. The latter provides up to 3 years of state aid, both for contracting high school…

This report presents selected statistics related to student enrollment and attendance, teacher preparation and turnover, revenue sources, major expenditures, property tax rates, results of referendums on school bonds, increased tax rates, and school budgets for local public school systems during the 1966-67 school year. These statistics are based…

A proposal in the New York State Assembly in 2000 considered eliminating Tax Equalization Aid to school districts in order to fund the elimination of aid caps, called Transition Adjustment. In response to that proposal, this report examines the equalizing or disequalizing effects of three types of New York state aid to school…

This report on local school system statistics in the United States presents data for 140 unified school systems with enrollments of 25,000 or more and for 157 high salary school systems with fewer than 25,000 students. Included are selected statistics on (1) pupils in school, (2) classroom teachers (degrees and turnover), (3) percents of revenue…