In the United States, K-12 school finance is largely controlled by the states. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds are distributed based on 51 different configurations of formulas, rules, and regulations to over 13,000 districts that vary in terms of the students they serve, their ability to raise revenue locally, and many…

State school finance formula cause funding inadequacy, allocative inefficiency, and educational resource equity gaps. Legislative and court-ordered remedies have failed to solve the disparities among schools and districts. This book's ground-breaking innovation shows how to shift the public education finance paradigm to fund K-12 public education…

"Making the Grade analyzes the condition of public school funding in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The current report presents a picture of school funding in 2020-2021, the first full school year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the most recent data available. The report ranks and grades each state on three measures to answer the…

To prepare for the future, state policymakers can learn from the past -- specifically, the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Recession. Drawing on lessons learned from both time periods, the authors of this brief set out to answer the following questions: (1) What lessons from past economic crises might help state policymakers and advocates prepare…

Because of the pandemic, many states will likely need to determine how they can best address shrinking revenues with the least harm to students, even as the needs of students have increased and the crisis has exposed gaping disparities. ExcelinEd, in partnership with a diverse group of organizations--the Aspen Institute, the District Management…

This report explains how the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) Act came to be and offers promising practices and lessons other states may adapt to their political and economic contexts. Through in-depth interviews with advocates and state leaders, the authors uncovered five factors that contributed to TISA's passage that have…

Approximately 20 percent of the public school students in the City of Los Angeles attend a charter school. Los Angeles is home to the second-largest school district in the nation. The School Choice Demonstration Project research team has documented disparities between traditional public school (TPS) and charter school funding in Los Angeles…

Many state funding programs are intended to reach directly to students, but in reality funds must go through school districts, which have considerable freedom in how they allocate resources. As such, states have a strong interest in ensuring that districts invest in strategies that are backed by evidence and create opportunity for all students.…

This article focuses on the application of "Savage Inequalities"-based analyses of data from the state of Idaho with a focus on equitable rural school funding. While Kozol's famous 1991 book-length work examining school inequalities was focused on urban centers and completed several decades ago, this article offers an updated examination…

The research on full-day kindergarten and its benefits are robust, from improving literacy skills, greater math and reading gains during the school year, and overall academic growth. In addition, children with developmental delays and special learning needs are able to be identified earlier and supported with appropriate interventions. Fully…

Each student has unique needs and learns in different ways. By allowing parents to plan for their children's individual needs, education scholarship accounts (ESAs) create a personal approach to education. This report presents: (1) What are education scholarship accounts?; (2) How can parents use ESA funds?; (3) Which states have Educaation…

The latest edition of "Quality Counts 2018" takes a detailed look at what is behind this year's school finance grades from the Education Week Research Center, first reported as part of the annual state-by-state ranking of the nation's schools released in January. Under the new "Quality Counts" format, this second of three…

Today, free public kindergarten for five-year-old children is available in every state and community throughout the United States, and public education is routinely referred to as K-12. But kindergarten did not start out this way. Kindergartens in the United States once served children as young as three and four years old. In fact, today's…

For the first time in the history of the State of the States, all 50 states will be represented with entries this year. A number of state legislatures are working to provide public education the necessary fiscal support to provide students with a high quality 21st century education, or restore funding levels for public education to pre-Great…

This mixed-method study explored the culturally responsive practices of a midsized, Southern California school district that used Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP) state funding to implement a voluntary summer program accessible to TK--6 grade students district-wide. Qualitative data gathered from semistructured interviews with the…