School Finance 101: Filling our Nation’s Funding Gaps | National Education Policy Center

School Finance 101: Filling our Nation’s Funding Gaps | National Education Policy Center

School Finance 101: Filling our Nation’s Funding Gaps

Big Education Ape: Getting School Finance Indicators Right – School Finance 101 - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/01/getting-school-finance-indicators-right.html

.

Big Education Ape: The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems (second edition) | School Finance Indicators Database - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-adequacy-and-fairness-of-state.html

School Finance Indicators Database - Home

Mark Weber, Matt Di Carlo and I have a new report, with data and visualizations available over at schoolfinancedata.org. For that project, we take advantage of two major data sources to estimate a “cost model” for public school districts in the United States – specifically with the goal of estimating the per pupil costs (spending, controlling for differences in efficiency) to achieve a common outcome goal. We set that common outcome goal at the very modest level of existing national average outcomes on state assessments of reading and math achievement, grades 3 to 8. Yes, these are limited outcomes. Yes, this is a low bar. But, our main point here is to evaluate the disparities that exist across states and districts in the funding available, relative to the predicted costs, of achieving this modest target. Education cost analyses of this type have helped us better understand two things:

1. It costs more to achieve higher outcomes than lower ones; and
2. It costs more to achieve any given level of outcomes in some settings, with some children, than others!

State school finance systems state accountability systems for schools have historically been disjoint. On the one hand, we use state assessment data and other outcome measures to declare schools or districts good or bad – exceptional or failing. But rarely do we design and implement school funding systems that are actually built upon estimates of a) the costs of achieving the desired outcome levels, on average, or b) how those costs vary from one setting and child to the next. That is, we don’t design state school finance systems to deliver the funding that would provide each school or district with equal opportunity to hit the targets we set in state accountability policies. Thus, we necessarily create an unfair playing field. This is true in every state, though some more than others. We’ve rarely even considered how these disparities play out across states. That is, whether children in Mississippi should have equal opportunity to achieve outcomes similar to children in Massachusetts, and what that might cost.

Here’s what those funding gaps look like with respect to costs to achieve national average CONTINUE READING: School Finance 101: Filling our Nation’s Funding Gaps | National Education Policy Center

School Finance Indicators Database - Home

School Finance Indicators Database - Home

School Finance Indicators Database

Big Education Ape: Getting School Finance Indicators Right – School Finance 101 - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/01/getting-school-finance-indicators-right.html

Big Education Ape: The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems (second edition) | School Finance Indicators Database - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-adequacy-and-fairness-of-state.html

School Finance Indicators Database - Home

WELCOME

The School Finance Indicators Database is a collection of data and research on K-12 public school funding in the U.S. These resources are designed for use not only by researchers, but also by parents, policymakers, journalists, and the general public. Every year, the SFID team publishes two primary databases, both of which are freely available to download:

The State Indicators Database is a user-friendly dataset of roughly 125 state-by-state school funding measures, many of which are available going back to 1993. These measures focus on the adequacy and fairness not only of revenue and spending, but also of how money is spent (e.g., teacher pay competitiveness, staffing ratios). The dataset is accompanied every year by a report presenting key findings, as well as one-page profiles summarizing the school funding systems of all 50 states and D.C. 

The District Cost Database allows users to assess the adequacy of spending levels in over 12,000 public school districts by comparing districts’ actual per-pupil spending with estimates of adequate spending levels in those districts. The database also includes a small set of district-level measures, such as test scores and Census child poverty rates, with which users can compare spending adequacy. The DCD is published annually (currently available for 2018 only).

In addition to the full datasets, annual reports, and state profiles, we also publish a set of online data visualizations (updated annually) and occasional research briefs, which present key measures from both databases. It is our hope that our data, and analyses based on these data, will help to improve school finance debates and policymaking in the U.S.

GETTING STARTED

• Read our latest annual report presenting key findings from the State Indicators Database
• Download one page profiles summarizing each state’s finance system
• View spending adequacy profiles for individual school districts
• Analyze the state database with customizable visualizations
• Download the state and district datasets in Excel or Stata format

---

The School Finance Indicators Database is compiled and published by researchers at the Albert Shanker Institute and the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education.

School Finance Indicators Database - Home

School Finance Indicators Database - Home

The Adequacy of School District Spending in the U.S. – School Finance 101

The Adequacy of School District Spending in the U.S. – School Finance 101

The Adequacy of School District Spending in the U.S.

New Project at School Finance Indicators Database

With Matt Di Carlo & Mark Weber

Full research brief

Press release

Dataset

Data visualization

It’s fairly common knowledge that U.S. school districts vary widely in terms of funding. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, in an ideal school funding system, we would expect to see differences between districts in their spending levels, even big differences, for the simple reason that the cost of educating students varies a great deal across districts. 

For instance, some districts serve larger shares of high-need students than others, and the former require more resources to achieve a given level of student performance. Similarly, like any employer, districts have to pay competitive wages, and labor costs also vary substantially by location. Teachers in areas with high costs of living, for example, have to be paid more than their colleagues in small rural towns where living is less expensive. 

In short, unequal spending is acceptable and even desirable if it is aligned with unequal costs. The key question is whether districts have the resources to meet their students’ needs. In other words, is school district spending adequate?

This research brief presents key findings from a new public database of funding adequacy for over 12,000 U.S. public school districts. The database (the District Cost Database) allows one to compare each district’s actual per-pupil spending with estimates of adequate per-pupil spending levels—that is, spending levels that would be required to achieve the goal of U.S. average test scores (a common “benchmark” with which the models assess adequacy). The data are for the 2017-18 school year.

The brief reports some good news. Thousands of districts enjoy funding levels above and beyond estimated adequate levels. You can find these districts in every single U.S. state. In some cases, funding is two or three times higher than the targets. Even in states such as Arizona and New Mexico, where large majorities of students attend schools in underfunded districts, there are numerous districts in which spending exceeds estimated requirements.

Yet these districts co-exist with thousands of other school systems, some located within driving distance or even in the next town over, where investment is so poorly aligned with need that funding levels are a fraction of estimated costs. Districts with negative funding gaps are CONTINUE READING: The Adequacy of School District Spending in the U.S. – School Finance 101

Closing America’s Education Funding Gaps

Closing America’s Education Funding Gaps

Closing America’s Education Funding Gaps

America is in the midst of a profound political reckoning. Against the backdrop of an unprecedented public health crisis and steadily rising death toll, a historically deep economic recession, and widespread protests against police brutality and racial injustice, people across the country are awakening and grappling anew with longstanding issues of inequality, opportunity, and justice—and confronting the hard truths of the American experience for people of color.

One of the starkest examples of this inequality, as well as a leading cause of it, is our nation’s highly unequal and highly segregated K–12 public education system. By underinvesting in our public schools, we rob millions of American children—particularly Black, brown, and low-income children—of the opportunity to succeed. Inequality, in effect, begins at birth.

While we have known for decades that the United States is failing in its commitment to provide equal educational opportunity, there is far less consensus and understanding of how to reverse these trends. Now, for the first time ever, The Century Foundation (TCF) has calculated the level of investment needed to lift up every student in the country that is currently falling behind. In other words, in this report we estimate what it would cost to provide each child in America—no matter their background—with the opportunity to succeed in school.

Inequality begins in childhood: The United States is underfunding our public schools by nearly $150 billion annually, robbing millions of children—predominantly minority and low-income children—of the opportunity to succeed.

We can begin to restore the promise of public education by simply investing more in our students and in our schools. A wide-ranging and rigorous body of research makes it clear: spending matters in education. More specifically, greater investments in schools translate to improved student outcomes, and these outcomes are more pronounced and significant for low-income and minority students.

Across a range of metrics, U.S. students score lower than students in other developed nations, and these outcomes vary significantly along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. At the same time, state- and district-level data show wide variation in educational spending across the country. Some school districts and states spend vastly more per pupil, and pay educators much higher wages, than others. Not surprisingly, variation in education spending largely overlaps with variation in student outcomes. In general, where states invest more in public schools, students tend to achieve higher scores and perform better.

To calculate exactly “how much” more spending is needed, TCF partnered with the nation’s leading school finance expert, Bruce D. Baker, Ed.D., of Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, to develop a first-of-its-kind national cost model study. Our model estimates what it would cost for students to achieve national average outcomes on reading and math assessments by 2021 for every school district in the country, more than 13,000 in total.

For the majority of school districts in the country (7,224 in total, serving almost two-thirds of public school students, or more than 30 million children in total), bringing students up to the nation’s current average outcomes requires greater public investment, enough to fill what we call a “funding gap.” The remaining districts currently provide funding at or above what our model estimates is needed to achieve average outcomes, and thus have no funding gap.1

We have visualized the findings of the model in a nationwide map, available above. The interactive map allows users to identify what, if any, funding gap exists for a particular school district or state. It includes estimates for both aggregate and per-pupil funding gaps in each school district and state, which serve to tell us the following:

• Aggregate funding gaps provide the overall scope of the investment needed in each jurisdiction. In districts and states with larger populations of students, these aggregate gaps will be larger.
• Per-pupil funding gaps, on the other hand, allow comparisons across districts and states, irrespective of population size.

In addition, we include two different estimates for what it would cost to close the gap:

• The first represents the cost to states and districts if they acted swiftly to close the gap within one year.
• The second represents the costs to localities if they scale up and phase in spending over five years to close the gap (the map below).

CONTINUE READING: Closing America’s Education Funding Gaps

Bruce D. Baker and Robert Cotto Jr.: The underfunding of Latinx-serving school districts - kappanonline org

The underfunding of Latinx-serving school districts  - kappanonline.org

The underfunding of Latinx-serving school districts 

An analysis of spending in U.S. public schools reveals dozens of districts — many with large Latinx enrollments — that are underfunded compared to other districts in their region, even though they serve children with much greater needs.  

When analyzing questions of fairness in local education spending, it’s important to understand that the value of the education dollar is relative. It doesn’t just matter how much money, in total, a school district spends but also how that figure compares to spending in nearby districts. After all, schools in the same area must compete with each other for employees. The district that spends $15,000 per pupil will have a harder time hiring and retaining the area’s highest-quality teachers and staff than will the neighboring district that spends $20,000. Moreover, each dollar will go further in districts that serve relatively affluent students than in those that serve large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds, who tend to need more (and more expensive) services. 

Several years ago, one of us (Bruce Baker) set out to identify public school districts that face this kind of competitive disadvantage — more specifically, districts where the students face greater needs than in surrounding districts (i.e., child poverty is more than 20% higher) but where per-pupil spending is less than 90% of the region’s average.  

At the time, a number of national reports had just been published comparing the overall fairness of states’ school finance systems (Baker & Corcoran, 2012; Baker, Sciarra, & Farrie, 2014). But studies were also beginning to show a lot of variation within states. Even in those states that appeared to have relatively well-funded and equitable school finance systems, some districts were being left out. And that raised the question: Did those districts have something in common?  

The answer turned out to be yes. Those districts where students’ needs were greater but the schools were relatively under-resourced were disproportionately located in smaller cities that served high CONTINUE READING:  The underfunding of Latinx-serving school districts  - kappanonline.org

A few thoughts on School Funding and Pandemic Relief – School Finance 101

A few thoughts on School Funding and Pandemic Relief – School Finance 101

A few thoughts on School Funding and Pandemic Relief

I keep getting asked the same questions regarding my thoughts on the current stimulus proposals for schools. So here’s a quick attempt at summarizing my thoughts.

The pandemic has had at least three different types of effects on school funding.

First, the pandemic has highlighted the need for a short term infusion of resources to make existing schools safer and healthier for existing staff and students, increasing expenses for things such as cleaning supplies, PPE and technology expansion for increased remote access. While these things can add up, they are still probably the smallest among these financial issues facing schools and states in this moment. Still, they must be addressed, both for short term purposes and so that we learn better how to handle similar situations in the future.

The second issue is the fact that the pandemic has created significant shortfalls in state budgets which have yet to be resolved by an appropriately structured federal stimulus package. When state budgets take a hit like this, and income and sales tax revenues dip, there’s usually a large sharp dip for 1 to 3 years, followed by a long slow recovery. We learned a lot from the last great recession. This one is, and will be different in some ways. State budgets and by extension general aid to local school districts will need significant general support for ongoing expenses for the CONTINUE READING: A few thoughts on School Funding and Pandemic Relief – School Finance 101

Getting School Finance Indicators Right – School Finance 101

Getting School Finance Indicators Right – School Finance 101

Getting School Finance Indicators Right

Our data and reports can be found at: http://schoolfinancedata.org/

A few years back, Mark Weber and I decided (for a variety of reasons) that we needed to regain control over our school finance indicators work. We needed to find competent collaborators who would support our desire to continuously improve the quality and integrity of the indicators and our communication of them. We also needed to find an appropriate outlet. The William T. Grant Foundation had provided us with significant support to develop an open source data system and a set of indicators to improve the conversation around school funding equity and adequacy.

We found exactly what we were looking for through Matt Di Carlo at Shanker Institute, with whom I have collaborated on a few prior projects, most notably: https://www.shankerinstitute.org/resource/does-money-matter-second-edition

I started this work back in the mid to late 2000s around the time I transitioned from Kansas to New Jersey. I’ve written previously about my concern over other “indicators” reports that are out there and the need to improve and add clarity and consistency to the conversation.

Here in April of 2019, I explain the mindset behind the development of our new (in the past few years) school finance indicators data system (SFID):

Matt Di Carlo helped bring this all together into a clea

Matt Di Carlo helped bring this all together into a clear, concise set of indicators to be presented as the body of our new reports.

Below is the summary of our newest update:

The publication of this annual report and accompanying database is motivated by two CONTINUE READING: Getting School Finance Indicators Right – School Finance 101

BRUCE BAKER, ROB COTTO AND PRESTON GREEN: Fixing Connecticut school finance: The time is now

Fixing Connecticut school finance: The time is now

Fixing Connecticut school finance: The time is now

The COVID pandemic has laid bare the extent of inequalities across Connecticut’s cities, towns and school districts and the children and families they serve. Connecticut has long been one of our nation’s most racially and economically segregated states, while also one of the wealthiest. In the past decade those inequities have worsened along both economic and racial lines. In 2021, Connecticut continues to face the interrelated challenges of segregation and school funding equity and adequacy.  Connecticut must do better.

In two recent articles we showed that Connecticut school funding continues to systematically disadvantage students in schools and districts serving predominantly Latinx communities. This finding is not new, with districts like Bridgeport, Waterbury and New Britain recognized in numerous national reports as being among the most financially disadvantaged school districts in the nation. For a period, Connecticut appeared to do somewhat better on behalf of predominantly Black school districts, but this was largely a function of additional aid directed specifically at magnet school programs in Hartford and New Haven, and not by the design of the general aid formula. In a forthcoming article, we find that Black-white disparities in state and local revenues and in property taxation are among the largest in the nation and have worsened in recent years.

Inequities in property taxation, fueled by a long history of exclusionary zoning and racial discrimination, are major contributors to the state’s school finance problem, and cannot be ignored. Municipal fiscal dependence is also a problem. Having a system in which local public schools rely on city and town budgets, where those budgets are based on prior taxing and spending behavior rather than current needs exacerbates the unevenness of school funding, hitting especially hard, schools in cities like Bridgeport.  Above all, however, the state’s general aid program for schools – The Education Cost Sharing Formula (ECS) – falls short of addressing these inequities, and has never been CONTINUE READING: Fixing Connecticut school finance: The time is now

Jersey Jazzman: New Jersey's School COVID-19 Operating Plans: Still Racially Biased, Still Inadequately Funded For Many Students

Jersey Jazzman: New Jersey's School COVID-19 Operating Plans: Still Racially Biased, Still Inadequately Funded For Many Students

New Jersey's School COVID-19 Operating Plans: Still Racially Biased, Still Inadequately Funded For Many Students

Earlier this year, I posted about the racial inequities in New Jersey's school reopening plans, which were all affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Following that blog post, I used some updated data, refined my analysis a bit, and wrote about it over at the NJPP website. In both of these analyses I relied on data published at NJ Spotlight (an invaluable source for news about education policy in the Garden State).

Turns out NJ Spotlight just updated their list of NJ school districts and their COVID-19 operating plans. Let's first give props to Spotlight's Colleen O'Dea for keeping on top of these data updates.

With a few tweaks of my statistical program's code, it's not too hard to see how things have changed over the last few months. But let's review what I found back in September:

• About half of the state's students were in districts that only offered fully remote classes, while one-third were in districts that offered a hybrid of remote and in-person learning.
• White students were more likely to have the option to receive in-person instruction than Black or Hispanic students.
• The districts that offered only remote instruction were more likely to be underfunded -- according to the state's own law -- than districts offering hybrid instruction.

Before I get to the update, let me be clear about what I'm presenting. The analysis here is not what students are actually doing; it's what their districts offer. Governor Murphy has required all districts to offer fully remote instruction during the pandemic. But some CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: New Jersey's School COVID-19 Operating Plans: Still Racially Biased, Still Inadequately Funded For Many Students

Weathering the storm: School funding in the COVID-19 era - kappanonline.org

Weathering the storm: School funding in the COVID-19 era - kappanonline.org

Weathering the storm: School funding in the COVID-19 era

Bruce D. Baker, Mark Weber, and Drew Atchison

As COVID-19 takes a toll on education budgets, federal and state leaders should take specific steps to minimize the damage done to high-poverty schools.

 

Recent research into the economics of education leads to the inescapable conclusion that if we want our public schools to serve all children well, then we must provide them with equitable and adequate funding. Viewed across several decades, school and district spending data from across the United States reveal a clear pattern: When budgets have increased, students have seen significant gains in achievement and a range of other desirable outcomes (Jackson, 2018). Conversely, when school funding has been cut, student performance has suffered; and the deeper those cuts have been — consider, for example, the sharp budgetary declines during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 — the worse the student outcomes (Jackson, Wigger, & Xiong, 2018; Shores & Steinberg, 2017). Simply put, money matters.  

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public schools will likely experience even greater revenue losses in the coming years than they did during the Great Recession. Further, it appears that safely reopening schools in the fall of 2020 will itself be costly. In districts where school buildings are open, much smaller class sizes will be required to meet social distancing guidelines and contain the spread of the coronavirus; this, in turn, will require hiring additional personnel, finding new classroom space, and perhaps creating staggered schedules. It will mean more instructional hours for teachers, more staff hours spent cleaning and sanitizing facilities, and more complicated bus routes. Schools will have to budget for additional time and effort from maintenance and operations staff, food service workers, and other support positions. Nursing and other medical services — already inadequate in many schools (Willgerodt, Brock, & Maughan, 2018) — will need to be improved. And, to ensure equitable internet access when distance learning is required, districts will have to redouble their investments in broadband and portable computers. Finally, since learning losses due to this spring’s school closures CONTINUE READING: Weathering the storm: School funding in the COVID-19 era - kappanonline.org