The Progress of Education Reform: Understanding State School Funding PDF - Many policymakers view their state's school funding formula not as a tool for reform but as a barrier to change. Policymakers tend to view the way that their state funds schools as a byzantine system of rules, regulations and formulas that is only comprehendible to a handful of people. When policymakers don't understand the basics of their state’s funding system, it is difficult for them to determine what changes are needed to encourage innovation. This issue of The Progress of Education Reform sets out to ease some of the confusion by helping readers better understand these complex systems, with the hope that this knowledge will be used to help support education reform in the states. (Michael Griffith, ECS, June 2012)...

The Progress of Education Reform: Funding Dual Credit Programs PDF - More than 87% of America's public high schools offer their students the opportunity to gain college credit prior to graduation. Learning opportunities that allow students to gain college-level credit often are referred to as "dual credit" programs, and they are experiencing a growth in both the number of students who take advantage of them and the number of schools that offer them. (Mike Griffith, Education Commission of the States, January 2009)...

Student Count Mechanisms for Funding Purposes - This brief provides an overview of the student count mechanisms that are currently employed by states. It reviews Indiana's outgoing count mechanism, the Single Count Date, and compares it with the newly enacted Multiple Count Dates mechanism. The authors examine how other states use the Multiple Count Dates mechanism and highlight their varied experiences, to draw insights on how this new mechanism may impact Indiana school funding in the near future. (CEEP, May 2012)...

Deregulating School Aid in California: How 10 Districts Responded to Fiscal Flexibility, 2009-2010 - This report details how leaders in 10 California school districts are responding to Tier 3 flexibility reform, including what districts are doing with the newly flexible funds, how allocation decisions were made, and what their consequences have been. The researchers found that school districts felt uncertainty about the new flexibility and generally remained committed to the goals of the Tier 3 programs. (RAND Corporation, May 2011)...

Beyond Teacher Reassignments: Better Ways Districts Can Remedy Salary Inequities Across Schools - This report on school salary inequities is part of the $chools in Crisis: Making Ends Meet series of Rapid Response briefs from the Center on Reinventing Public Education funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. (Marguerite Roza and Sarah Yatsko, Center on Reinventing Public Education, February 2011)...

Do Schools in Rural and Nonrural Districts Allocate Resources Differently? An Analysis of Spending and Staffing Patterns in the West Region States - This study finds that rural districts in the West Region states spent more per student, hired more staff per 100 students, and had higher overhead ratios of district-to-school-level resources than did city and suburban districts. Regional characteristics were more strongly related to resource allocation than were other cost factors studied. (Institute of Education Sciences, January 2011)...

Formula for Success: Adding High-Quality Pre-K to State School Funding - Families, teachers and policy makers increasingly understand that high-quality pre-kindergarten is a critical part of children's educational experience. In 13 states and the District of Columbia, this recognition is reflected in the choice to finance pre-k programs through the school finance formula. This reform, co-written with the Education Law Center, discusses the benefits and challenges of integrating early education into states' general education funding structures. (Ellen Boylan and Shad White, Pre[K]Now/Pew Center on the States, May 2010)...

A Fifty-State Survey of School Finance Policies and Programs: An Overview - This overview provides a synthesis of a comprehensive survey of school finance programs in the 50 states conducted in 2006-07. Information was provided by chief state school finance officers or persons with expertise in a state's public school funding-allocation system. (Journal of Education Finance, Winter 2009)...

Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools - Our school finance system was not built to support today's work: making sure all students learn what they need to be competent, productive adults. Further tinkering with the same old system is not likely to make it work better but could overload it further and make things worse. This final report of a six-year study suggests how states, localities and the federal government can switch to a more productive new system. (Paul Hill, Marguerite Roza and James Harvey, Center on Reinventing Public Education, December 2008)...

The Issues and Implications of the “65 Percent Solution” - Policymakers, taxpayers and district leaders are seeking ways to maximize the impact of every dollar spent on public education and thus improve the educational "return on resources." To that end, a number of states are considering legislation that would require school districts to spend at least 65% of their budgets on classroom instruction, which is known as the "65% Solution." This paper addresses the following questions raised by the strategy and provides policymakers with a framework for considering its implications: (1) What do the data reveal about the relationship between spending allocations and student achievement? (2) What are the definitional issues to consider when determining the percentage a district spends on instruction? (3) What questions should policymakers consider in connection with the 65% solution? (School Matters, 2005)...

A Primer for Making Cost Adjustments in Education - This publication from the U. S. Department of Education was undertaken so that educators, the public and policymakers might better understand both geographic and inflation adjustments, and how they might be applied to elementary/secondary education. The authors present the differences in expenditures and costs, as well as how both geographic and inflation education cost adjustments can be used to assist in differentiating nominal and real costs. Because there may not be a single best cost adjustment, the book aims to promote the exchange of ideas between researchers and policymakers. (William J. Fowler Jr., and David H. Monk, NCES, February 2001)...