In this brief, we examine an important but obscure form of state spending on K-12 education-state subsidies of school district pension costs. In 2018, this exceeded $19 billion across 23 states. To put that amount into perspective, 2018 federal spending on Title I programs was $15.8 billion. This revenue stream is often ignored in analyses of…

School districts across New York are constrained from fully exploiting a potential source of revenue to help offset pressure on local taxes. The revenue source in question is commercial advertising--including signs, sponsorships and facility naming rights, especially for athletic facilities. Experience in other states suggests New York school…

Hold-harmless provisions in state aid formulas are meant to restrict declines in revenues for school districts. They may take several forms, including limits on the changes in state aid from year to year, supplemental funding for districts with declining enrollment, alternatives for calculating the state aid amount, or use of past enrollments in…

The Indiana Choice Scholarship Program (ICSP), which began in fall 2011, is a state taxpayer-funded financial aid program that helps low and lower-middle income Hoosiers to send their children to the private K-12 school of their choice. This voucher program has been extremely popular among families, as the number of students receiving scholarships…

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 purpose of this research was to examine funding losses experienced by preschool to grade 12 (P-12) public school districts in Indiana, U.S., from an equity standpoint after the implementation of statewide property tax caps. All Indiana public school districts (N = 292) rely on property taxes as a major source of revenue, but districts…

Opponents of educational choice recycle the same false prophesies of doom without regard to the evidence or the size and scope of the proposals. Part I of this report assesses the validity of choice opponents' predictions that choice policies will lead to significant losses of district school funding and declining academic performance. Part II of…

This article takes advantage of a recently released national data set on school site expenditures to evaluate spending variations between traditional district operated schools and charter schools operated by for-profit versus nonprofit management firms. Prior research has revealed the revenue-enhancement, private fund-raising capacity of major…

Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs) in 26 states have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. We provide a comprehensive description of how individual reforms affected resource allocation to low- and high-income districts within states, including both financial and…

Providing foundational academic support to Indiana's culturally and linguistically diverse students is a cornerstone of the state's educational goals. Over 140,000 Indiana students speak a language other than English at home, and there are over 295 different languages represented in Indiana schools. Of these, over 93,000 students have been…

Presenters at the State of the States Roundtable session at the 2014 National Education Finance Conference in Louisville were invited to submit their papers for publication. These papers address the following topics: (1) State issues affecting P-12 and/or higher education funding; (2) Funding priorities/trends for P-12 and/or higher education; (3)…

There has been debate among states as to how to properly fund schools. The debate has been focused on how much funding is supplied through property tax and is motivated by tax payer anger over fluctuating tax bills. Many of the policies have been implemented without looking at the effects that they will have on schools, especially in Indiana,…

This report follows up on previous work that examined the fiscal effects of private school voucher programs. It estimates the total fiscal effects of tax-credit scholarship programs--another type of private school choice program--on state governments, state and local taxpayers, and school districts combined. Based on a range of assumptions, these…

Presenters at the State of the States Roundtable session at the 2014 National Education Finance Conference in Louisville were invited to submit their papers for publication. These papers address the following topics: (1) State issues affecting P-12 and/or higher education funding; (2) Funding priorities/trends for P-12 and/or higher education; (3)…

Accessing affordable facilities has long been identified as one of the most significant challenges facing charter schools. In response to this challenge, an array of policy and market-based approaches has emerged over the years. Examples of these approaches include: public and private credit enhancement, tax-exempt bond financing, community…