This study investigates how individual states raise revenue to pay for elementary-secondary education spending following school finance reforms (SFRs). We identify states that increased and sustained education expenditures after reform, search for legislative statutes that appropriated more education spending, and assess how policymakers funded…

Since 1989, 27 states have passed one or multiple school finance reforms (SFRs), which are typically defined in the literature as court orders or legislative statutes that mandate major redesigns of a state's school funding formula. In most cases, SFRs increase the overall level of state spending on public schools, as well as target larger…

In the 2022-23 school year, Arizona began implementation of a "universal voucher" program through which all school-age students are eligible for a voucher, and families can use public funding to underwrite private or homeschool education for their children. Universal vouchers in Arizona are an expansion of the existing Empowerment…

Background: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) constituted a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. ESSA, although still recognizing the need of standardized testing, diverged from NCLB by transferring a significant amount of power over…

This article contributes to our understanding of American education politics by exploring when and why states redistribute K-12 education dollars to poorer schools. It does so by examining three explanations for intrastate changes in progressivity: court-ordered finance reforms, political trends, and demographic changes. Using state-level data…

Arizona shifted to using current-year enrollment, instead of prior-year enrollment, as the basis for determining state aid for school districts following the passage of Arizona Education Finance Amendment (AEFA) in 2017. This study examines the short-term effects of AEFA implementation on school inputs--namely, expenditures and district personnel,…

States are increasingly adopting changes to K-12 funding systems in order to promote and encourage student engagement in secondary-level career and technical education (CTE). Two of the most prevalent reforms include: a) establishing tiered weights for CTE in school funding formulas based on the connection between a program of study and workforce…

Policy and funding influence equitable education for students who are gifted. The concept of equity is examined through variations in policy and in funding at the state, district, and local levels. Challenges and barriers to equity in policy and funding include policy structures, where policy provides guidance without accountability measures, or…

Performance-based funding (PBF) policies with research incentives have grown in popularity over the years despite little understanding regarding whether they actually work. This study leverages a novel national data set to examine the impact of PBF research incentives on the research expenditures and total state appropriations among public 4-year…

This set of tables introduces new data for national and state-level public elementary and secondary revenues and expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2020. Specifically, this report includes the following school finance data: (1) revenue and expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) expenditures by function and object; (4) current expenditures;…

This set of tables introduces new data for national and state-level public elementary and secondary revenues and expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2021. Specifically, these tables include the following school finance data: (1) revenue and expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) expenditures by function and object; (4) current expenditures;…

We examine the impact of the Great Recession on public education finance and employment. Five major themes emerge from our work. First, nearly 300,000 school employees lost their jobs. Second, schools that were heavily dependent financially on state governments were particularly vulnerable to the recession. Third, local revenues from the property…

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…

A.C.A. §6-61-234 (Act 148 of 2017) directs the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board (AHECB) to adopt polices developed by the Arkansas Division of Higher Education (ADHE) necessary to implement a productivity-based funding model for state-supported institutions of higher education. Productivity-based funding is a mechanism to align…

Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs), a combination of court-ordered and legislative reforms, have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. In this study, we estimate the effects of SFRs on revenues and expenditures between 1990 and 2014 for twenty-six states. We find that, on…