Aligning School Finance with Academic Standards: A Weighted Student Formula Based on a Survey of Practitioners
by Jon Sonstelie (IREPP - Getting Down to Facts, 2006)
This study uses budget simulations completed by teachers, principals, and district superintendents to answer a central question: What resources do California schools need to ensure that more students meet the academic standards set by the state?
Basics of California's School Finance System
(EdSource, 2006)
This EdSource brief outlines the basics of the California education finance system.
Categorical School Finance: Who Gains, Who Loses?
by Thomas Timar (Policy Analysis for California Education, 2004)
This paper examines changes in California’s school finance system over the past 35 years. It focuses specifically on the growth of categorical program funding. The study assesses the nature and magnitude of changes, the causes of those changes, the significance of those changes for the capacity of schools to provide high quality educational services, and proposes alternative models to the existing system of categorical funding. The specific context for assessing the changes in the structure of school finance is its impact on equity, adequacy, flexibility and choice, efficiency, predictability and stability, rationality, and accountability.
District dollars: Painting a picture of revenues and expenditures in California’s school districts
by Susanna Loeb, Jason Grissom and Katharine Strunk (IREPP - Getting Down to Facts Studies, 2006)
As the debate in California grows regarding both the sufficiency and efficient use of school funds, there is still a lack of understanding of exactly what school districts spend money on and from where they get these funds. The goal of this paper is to describe the patterns of revenues and expenditures across California’s school districts, describe how spending has changed over time, and compare California to other states.
Evolution of California State School Finance with Implications from Other States
by Michael Kirst (IREPP "Getting Down to Facts Studies", 2007)
This paper provides an overview, evolution, and critique of the California school finance system. It is a companion to the descriptive analysis by Tim Timar, and comments on the papers by Peg Goertz and Allan Odden that provide a comparative state perspective of New Jersey, Wyoming, and Kentucky. The paper focuses upon the major flaws in the California finance system, as well as public opinion surveys on what to do about them. It addresses the inability of California to make non-incremental change in its whole finance system.
Getting Beyond the Facts: Reforming California School Finance
by Alan Bersin, Michael W. Kirst and Goodwin Liu (California Education Policy Convening, October 2007)
In this brief, one of 47 submitted to a policy forum hosted by EdSource in October 2007, Alan Bersin, Michael Kirst and Goodwin Liu propose an approach to finance system reform as a backdrop of other reform issues.
How California Funds K-12 Education
by Thomas Timar (IREPP "Getting Down to Facts Studies", 2007)
The paper is organized into three sections: the first discusses the major policies over the past 35 years that shaped the current finance system; the second examines the structure of the finance system—the sources and distribution of state and local revenues. The third examines the effects of those changes and significant policy issues related to the school finance system.
How much more does a disadvantaged student cost?
by William Duncombe and John Yinger (Economics of Education Review, 2005)
This paper provides a guide to statistically based methods for estimating the extra costs of educating disadvantaged students, shows how these methods are related, and compares state aid programs that account for these costs in different ways. It shows how pupil weights, which are included in many state aid programs, can be estimated from an education cost equation, which many scholars use to obtain an education cost index. The authors also devise a method to estimate pupil weights directly. Using data from New York State, they show that the distribution of state aid is similar with either statistically based pupil weights or an educational cost index. Finally, they show that large, urban school districts with a high concentration of disadvantaged students would receive far more aid (and rich suburban districts would receive far less aid) if statistically based pupil weights were used instead of the ad hoc weights in existing state aid programs.
Many a slip 'tween cup and lip: District fiscal practices and their effect on school spending
by Marguerite Roza (The Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2005)
Recent research has surfaced surprising spending differences among schools within the same district. Unlike spending variations across districts, school level spending variations have nothing to do with different local tax bases. Instead, outmoded but typical district budgeting practices are to blame, creating significant implications for current policy efforts to improve K-12 education.