Equity and adequacy in school funding

Future of Children

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 63-78

  Augenblick, John G ^a   Myers, John L ^a   Anderson, Amy Berk ^a  

^a Augenblick and Myers   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BUDGET; EDUCATION; FINANCE; INCOME; LAW SUIT; RESOURCE ALLOCATION; REVIEW; SCHOOL; TAX;

EID: 0031397490     PISSN: 10548289     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/1602446     Document Type: Review

References (40)

1. The various approaches used to create, organize, and fund the first schools are described in Cremin, L.A. American education: The colonial experience, 1607-1783. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970, pp. 167-95; see also, Bailyn, B. Education in the forming of American society. New York: W.W. Norton, 1960, pp. 43-44, 108-12.
2. The various approaches used to create, organize, and fund the first schools are described in Cremin, L.A. American education: The colonial experience, 1607-1783. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970, pp. 167-95; see also, Bailyn, B. Education in the forming of American society. New York: W.W. Norton, 1960, pp. 43-44, 108-12.
3. Katz, M.B. Class, bureaucracy, and schools. New York: Praeger, 1971, p. 24.
4. Enrich, P. Leaving equality behind: New directions in school finance reform. Vanderbilt Law Review (January 1995) 48,1:101-94.
5. Snyder, T.D., ed. 120 years of American education: A statistical portrait. NCES 93-442. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, January 1993, pp. 57-58.
6. It should be noted that, in the early part of this century, there were over 127,000 school districts in the country, more than eight times as many as there are now.
7. Strayer and Haig proposed the foundation plan concept in a 1923 report, Financing of Education in the State of New York, submitted to the Educational Finance Inquiry Commission, which operated between 1921 and 1924 under the auspices of the American Council on Education.
8. Gold, S., Smith, D., Lawton, S., and Hyary, A. Public school finance programs of the United States and Canada, 1990-91. Vol. 1. Albany: Center for the Study of the States, Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, State University of New York at Albany, 1992, p. 18.
9. Coons, J.G., Clune, W.H. III, and Sugarman, S.D. Private wealth and public education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970, pp. 64-65.
10. U.S. General Accounting Office. School finance: State efforts to reduce funding gaps between poor and wealthy districts. GAO/HEHS-97-31. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997. In the GAO analysis, each student in special education was weighted as 2.3 students, and each student in poverty was weighted as 1.2 students.
11. In the GAO analysis, local tax effort was defined as school revenue from local taxes (per weighted pupil) for each $1,000 in income (per weighted pupil).
12. Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal. 3d 584, 487 P.2d 1241 (1971).
13. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
14. Verstegen, D.A. The new wave of school finance litigation. Phi Delta Kappan (November 1994) 76,3:243-50.
15. For an analysis of some key words in state education articles, see, among others, Bailey, A. School finance litigation: A renewed impulse for reforms. Alexandria, VA: National School Boards Association, 1991; Fulton, M., and Long, D. School finance litigation: A historical summary. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States, 1993; Alexander, K., Brock, J., Forgy, L., et al. Constitutional intent: "System," "common," and "efficient" as terms of art. Journal of Education Finance (Fall 1989) 15,2:142-62.
16. For an analysis of some key words in state education articles, see, among others, Bailey, A. School finance litigation: A renewed impulse for reforms. Alexandria, VA: National School Boards Association, 1991; Fulton, M., and Long, D. School finance litigation: A historical summary. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States, 1993; Alexander, K., Brock, J., Forgy, L., et al. Constitutional intent: "System," "common," and "efficient" as terms of art. Journal of Education Finance (Fall 1989) 15,2:142-62.
17. For an analysis of some key words in state education articles, see, among others, Bailey, A. School finance litigation: A renewed impulse for reforms. Alexandria, VA: National School Boards Association, 1991; Fulton, M., and Long, D. School finance litigation: A historical summary. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States, 1993; Alexander, K., Brock, J., Forgy, L., et al. Constitutional intent: "System," "common," and "efficient" as terms of art. Journal of Education Finance (Fall 1989) 15,2:142-62.
18. Murray, S.E., Evans, W.N., and Schwab, R.M. Schoolhouses, courthouses, and statehouses after Serrano. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (1997) 16,1:10-31.
19. Rose v. Council for Better Education, 790 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1989).
20. Abbott v. Burke, 119 N.J. 287, 575 A.2d 359 (1990).
21. Helena Elementary School District No. 1 v. State, 236 Mont. 44, 769 P.2d 684 (1989).
22. Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District v. Edgewood Independent School District, 826 S.W.2d 489 (Tex. 1992) ("Edgewood III").
23. VanSlyke, D., Tan, A., and Orland, M. School finance litigation: A review of key cases. Washington, DC: The Finance Project, December 1994, pp. 8, 13.
24. A good source of information on current litigation activities is the Web site of the Education Commission of the States, School Finance Litigation Activity, at http://www.ecs.org/ECS/24ba.htm.
25. Underwood, J.K. School finance adequacy as vertical equity. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform (Spring 1995) 28,3:493-519.
26. Campbell County School District v. State of Wyoming, 907 P.2d 1238 (Wy. 1995).
27. Roosevelt Elementary School District No. 66 v. Bishop, 179 Ariz. 233, 877 P.2d 806 (1994).
28. See, for example, Barton, P., Coley, R., and Goertz, M. The state of inequality. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1991; and Hertert, L., Busch, C., and Odden, A. School financing inequities among the states: The problem from a national perspective. Journal of Education Finance (Winter 1994) 19,3:231-55.
29. See, for example, Barton, P., Coley, R., and Goertz, M. The state of inequality. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1991; and Hertert, L., Busch, C., and Odden, A. School financing inequities among the states: The problem from a national perspective. Journal of Education Finance (Winter 1994) 19,3:231-55.
30. Rodriguez v. Los Angeles Unified School District. Los Angeles County Superior Court, No. C 611358, Consent Decree (1992).
31. See, for example, Schwartz, M., and Moscowitz, J. Fiscal equity in the United States, 1984-85. Washington, DC: Decision Resources Corporation, February 1988.
32. People such as Michael Kirst, Allan Odden, and James Guthrie (California), Alan Hickrod (Illinois), George Chambers (Iowa), David Thompson (Kansas), Margaret Goertz (New Jersey), William Hartman (Pennsylvania), and Catherine Clark (Texas) have monitored equity in particular states, in some instances over long periods of time. It should be noted that one state, Kentucky, has institutionalized the evaluation of school finance equity. Since 1991, the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability has prepared a report that tracks equity to evaluate the Education Reform Act of 1990.
33. The federal Impact Aid program (PL. 81-874), which distributes funds to school districts with large amounts of tax-exempt federally owned property, such as military bases, rewards states that can pass stringent tests of expenditure disparity (measured by the coefficient of variation) or fiscal neutrality. Unfortunately, most states are not reviewed under this program, so comparable information about the level of equity their school finance systems achieve is not available.
34. For example, if a state had a mean per-pupil expenditure of $6,000, a high level of fiscal equity would require that two-thirds of the state's students attend districts with per-pupil spending between $5,400 and $6,600 (10% above or below the statewide mean). A moderate level of fiscal equity would mean that at least two-thirds of the state's students attended districts with spending between $4,500 and $7,500 (25% above or below the mean). A low level of equity would mean that fewer than two-thirds of the state's students attended districts with per-pupil spending levels between $4,500 and $7,500.
35. The 7 states with a relatively high level of fiscal equity are Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.
36. The 4 states having a relatively low level of fiscal equity are Alaska, Illinois, Missouri, and Montana.
37. The 11 additional states that would have low equity if this condition were more stringently defined are Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming.
38. Even though a state has moderate or low fiscal equity, the state supreme court may have upheld the system's constitutionality, either because the court considered different data or different years, or because of the specifics of the state's constitutional language, history, and circumstances.
39. Education Commission of the States. Clearinghouse notes: Determining the cost of a basic or core education. Denver, CO: ECS, 1997.
40. For more detailed information and additional approaches, see Augenblick, J.G., and Myers, J.L. Determining base cost for state school funding systems. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States, February 1994.