Friday Finance 101: School Finance Formula & Money Matters Basics
Modern state school finance formulas – aid distribution formulas – typically strive (but fail) to achieve two simultaneous objectives: 1) accounting for differences in the costs of achieving equal educational opportunity across schools and districts, and 2) accounting for differences in the ability of local public school districts to cover those costs. Local district ability to raise revenues might be a function of either or both local taxable property wealth and the incomes of local property owners, thus their ability to pay taxes on their properties.
Figure 1 presents a hypothetical example of the distribution of state and local revenue per pupil across school districts, sorted by poverty concentration. The hypothetical relies on the simplified assumption that districts with
Figure 1 presents a hypothetical example of the distribution of state and local revenue per pupil across school districts, sorted by poverty concentration. The hypothetical relies on the simplified assumption that districts with