The past year witnessed cases involving the constitutionality of tax credits and tax deductions for expenses incurred by parents whose children attend nonpublic schools. The constitutionality of state school finance programs continued to be questioned, and several cases involving funds for the education of handicapped children also were decided.…

This publication describes Oregon's current school funding system, and provides some criteria for evaluating alternatives that address issues of equity, balance, and stability. Oregon's school funding system depends primarily on local property taxes (57%) and a state aid program (22%) funded mainly by an income tax. This system permits a great…

The goal of the doctoral dissertation summarized here was to find an equitable school finance plan that applied the same tax rate in all districts and resulted in the smallest variance in the expenditure per weighted pupil unit (WPU) between districts in Arizona for the 1971-72 school year. Six finance plans were developed for analysis and were…

Addition of fiscal response factors to the traditional simulation model of school finance demonstrates that the traditional model underestimates both the costs and impacts of state aid programs at the district level. The study reviews research on fiscal response--defined as school districts' taxing and spending behavior after receipt of state…

Residential areas with low property tax rates are more desirable than those with high tax rates, and school districts that have a high rate of expenditure per pupil are more attractive to parents than those with low rates of expenditure. For these reasons, the financial characteristics of a school district influence the value of housing in the…

Achieving a state education finance program that is fair to students, taxpayers, teachers, and school districts is complicated by varying student needs and different property tax rates and school expenses among districts. Attempts at equitable allocation of state aid funds and other educational resources should be guided by the principles of…

Changes in state school finance systems in the 1970's and early 1980's are discussed in this report, and possible trends for the future are considered. The report reviews changes in school revenue, levels of state support, levels of expenditure relative to personal income, and the provision of new revenues by the states. The decreasing importance…

Research on intra-district inequalities is necessary for determining if changes in state financing formulas have affected inequitable distributions of educational resources within school districts and between classrooms in individual schools. Material inequalities in per pupil expenditures based on race were outlawed by the Hobsen vs Hansen court…

Alaska's public schools cost $1.2 billion in the 1992-93 school year. That included both operating and capital spending and amounted to about $10,000 for each of the state's 119,000 elementary and secondary students. Roughly one-quarter of the state government's general fund budget went to the schools, covering 64 percent of costs. About 30…

After being placed on the back burner during the 1980s, school finance is again a major issue. In the 1970s, reliance on property taxes created school district disparities because of unequal tax bases. Legislative reforms enacted between 1971 and 1985 had the following characteristics: school finance formulas were revamped; the state role in…

The major issues surrounding the financing of schools cluster in three areas: the use of public money in private and parochial schools, the sources and allocation of public school funds, and the ability to raise school taxes. Although the number of cases dealing with religion declined, there were cases concerning the use of public money to provide…

Cases related to school finance, in which decisions were handed down in 1982, are reviewed in this chapter. It is observed that the constitutionality of existing state school finance programs was upheld in New York, Colorado, and Georgia, and that litigation was prevalent in the areas of taxation for schools and uses of school revenue. Issues…

Chapter 6 of a book on school law, this chapter deals with the financial support of schools. According to the author, the constitutionality of state support programs continued to be a major issue in school finance litigation during the past year. The number of cases involving financial aspects of programs for children with special needs increased,…

This review of the history of school finance litigation highlights various rulings of the courts and the ways that legal strategies have changed over time. Originally the school finance cases were based on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the argument being that differences in per pupil spending had…

This document provides background information intended to help in the formulation of educational finance policy at the national level. The first chapter discusses variations in spending within and between states since the 1930s; causes for inequitable and inefficient revenue raising and resource allocation; and differences between states in…