How much does spending vary across US public schools? And how much do the schools that low-income students attend spend compared to schools attended by their more advantaged peers? Students are educated in schools, which are frequently segregated by race and socioeconomic status, and spending can vary across schools within the same district. But…

Congress amended and extended the "Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education" ("Perkins IV") in 2018 with passage of the "Strengthening Career and Technical Education Act for the 21st Century" ("Perkins V"); the law became effective on July 1, 2019. "Perkins V" increases federal funding for…

State early childhood administrators are planning to strategically invest the federal appropriations in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) to address disruptions in children's care and learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. State leaders must consider how this one-time funding can be used effectively while understanding the context around…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of public policy decisions in each state that contribute to public higher education funding levels and funding distributions across states and…

Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) invited 10 districts to participate in a community of practice designed to increase understanding of how to braid and blend federal funds. District teams composed of principals, superintendents, business managers, and other district leaders participated in four 90-minute virtual sessions. The purpose of…

Milwaukee's system of K-12 public education is distinct from many other urban school systems in the degree of educational choices offered to students and their families. This range of options has fostered intense competition among Milwaukee's K-12 schools over the past decade. While enrollment in traditional Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has…

In recent years, competition for K-12 enrollment in Wisconsin among traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools using the state's voucher programs has intensified. Because elementary and secondary education finance in the state primarily is driven by enrollment, this has presented increasingly difficult fiscal conditions for…

In order to inform the Indiana State Board of Education's decision-making on Indiana's On My Way Pre-K Pilot program, researchers at the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) at Indiana University compiled existing data on ten states that have implemented pilot pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs and subsequently expanded these programs…

This past year has been unlike any in recent history. In March, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced Illinois to shift suddenly to remote learning for all students. This adjustment exposed the digital divide as a stark reality. One bright spot in the year occurred in May, when the Illinois' plan for career and technical education (CTE) received…

Aid Like A Paycheck is based on a simple idea that is gaining national attention: after tuition and fees have been paid to a college, disburse the remaining financial aid to students evenly throughout the term--like a paycheck. The goals of the program are to help students achieve a good balance between time in work and school, and think about…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is the largest incursion of the federal government into education in American history. More than $12 billion is attached to unprecedented requirements for all students, poor and nonpoor, to reach a level of academic proficiency. Title I and its NCLB reauthorization explicitly allot funds to individual schools…

This study tracks Federal block grant monies and their impact on the poor of Illinois. The hypothesis prompting the study was that the state has distributed a smaller proportion of its Federal block grant funds to those counties with the highest proportion of the state's poor as compared with the proportional distribution of Federal dollars under…

The present monograph has been "written with a view" to presenting in a simple and concise manner to the general educational public the most significant conclusions reached in the course of an extensive study of school finance, continued for several years and covering a number of states. Some of the data have been taken from bulletins of…

This report concerns the review by the General Accounting Office of the operation of the fiscal year 1970 programs, funded under Title I of the 1965 Elementary Secondary Education Act and certain aspects of the 1971 programs of the Illinois State educational agency, and of the Chicago, Harrisburg, and Rockford local educational agencies. The local…

This book has been prepared so that taxpayers, school board members, and administrators may learn more about school finance in their own districts. It will equip them with the information necessary to understand and evaluate both the statewide system of education in Illinois and how this system relates to their own school district. Despite…