n.a.
The welfare cost of free public schools is the difference between the cost of those schools and the maximum parents would be willing to pay to send their children to those schools. Estimates based on data from California school districts in 1970 indicate that this welfare cost is substantial, mostly because private schools are cheaper per unit of quality than public schools.
Responding to a request from the Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education – Kindergarten through University, the Public Policy Institute of California commissioned a series of reports on adequacy-based school finance, alternative approaches to school governance, and local revenue options for school districts. These reports were delivered to the Joint Committee and its staff between August 2000 and April 2001. School Finance and California’s Master Plan for Education brings together those essays and makes them available to more general audiences. Taken together, they suggest that a new system of school finance and governance could help provide adequate resources to California’s schools. They also consider the link between those resources and improved student achievement.
Federal reform legislation declares, through its title, that no child should be left behind. Despite this, the sad truth is that many children are being left behind, particularly in large, poor, urban school districts. Because of this inequity, state supreme courts have thrown out the education finance systems in eighteen states, and many states have implemented major education finance reforms. These reforms have lessened disparities in educational spending but appear to have had little impact on disparities in educational performance. Helping Children Left Behind explores both the general issues in education finance reform and the experiences of five states to understand why these disparities persist and to design policies that address them. The book is a valuable resource for scholars, public officials, and others interested in education finance reform. The first part of the book addresses the general issues involved in reform of state aid to education. After a comprehensive introductory chapter that outlines such issues as selecting aid formulas, adjusting for disadvantaged students, district accountability, and school choice, the chapters in part I examine these issues in more depth, discussing court cases involving school finance reform, the relationship between funding and accountability, and the consequences and feedback effects of school aid reform policies, including the effect on residential patterns. The second part of the book consists of detailed case studies of recent ambitious school finance reform efforts in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Texas, and Vermont. Three appendixes offer valuable reference material, describing significant state court decisions on school finance systems (through June 2003), state operating aid programs, and state building aid formulas.
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