This guide is intended to provide guidance to state and local leaders in identifying the need for finance reform; understanding and evaluating the pros and cons of alternative financial approaches; and designing strategies to build long-lasting public support. Chapter 1 reviews the key forces pushing for reform and outlines principles to guide…

Designed for secondary school social studies teachers, this curriculum outline offers suggestions for teaching about the governance, cost, and sources of fiscal support for public education. Although the outline is specifically designed for use by teachers in Michigan, it can be adapted for use in any state. Arranged into five major sections,…

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,…

Investigates the financial structure of Russia's educational system and finds it wanting. Social, political, and economic changes have rendered the old Soviet system dysfunctional and irrelevant. Authorities, however, have failed to create a replacement. Discusses several possible reforms, including creating a national banking system for…

Argues that recent federal education legislation will not eliminate unequal funding, school performance inequities, and student achievement gaps that have persisted in the poorest school districts. Asserts that adequate, equitable, and targeted human and financial resources and standards are necessary, and that the slight increases in federal…

Fiscal support for higher education and policy concerns at the state level during difficult financial times are discussed, with specific reference to the western states. States vary widely in several ways: the strength of their economies, the actions of legislatures and voters to reduce the revenues or the expenditure base of state and local…

In Serrano v. Priest, the California Supreme Court in 1971 initiated a modern era of elementary and secondary school finance reform. This paper first examines the present problems of urban school finance to ascertain why urban adjustments are necessary today in the new school finance formulas. All urban school finance adjustments in use at the…

Offers statistics showing community colleges to be one of the most cost-effective segments of higher education. Compares figures for public and private two- and four-year colleges with respect to tuition; federal, state, and local revenues; appropriations and grants; student financial aid; tax support; per capita government assistance; and…

Information is presented on 1980-81 tax performance and educational spending in Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states, the relationship of state and local taxes to personal income in all the states, and utilization of tax ability and major tax bases. Additionally, factors producing serious state and local budgetary problems are…

This document describes the organization, systems of management and governance, and financing of the San Diego Unified School District, serving over 122,000 students in California. The first chapter reviews the services provided by the district: instructional services, incorporating instructional personnel and programs; support service, including…

The study reported here provides a theoretical and empirical framework for the analysis of employment tax credit policy (a government subsidy or business tax credit to firms who maintain or expand their use of labor). Various programs are examined from the standpoint of structure and implications. The programs are selective employment incentive;…

This study focuses on how central city school districts can benefit from educational finance reform. The publication is designed for use by both those charged with the responsibility for education matters and by the general public. The document begins with a discussion of the fiscal impact of several popular alternative school finance reforms,…

Financing of higher education in New York and the public policies which impinge on, influence, and are reflected in the process are explored in this preliminary probe. Chapters include: The Need for the Study (N. J. King); Implications of Tax Policy (Mark Segal); Institutional Tax Exemptions and Tax Benefits (Steven A. Cohen); State Institutional…

This handbook is an easy-to-use reference book for policymakers, public officials, and policy analysts, as well as anyone else who may need up-to-date information about state economic, demographic, and fiscal data. The book includes data on demographics, poverty rates, per capita state personal income, state and local tax rates, and state and…

This third edition of this book explores traditional economic and political models and contemporary issues that affect the social, political, and economic state of schools. Like the previous two editions, this edition takes a balanced approach to understanding school finance issues by using paradigms of both the economist and the political…