In the 40-plus years since the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," special education has grown in the number of students and amount spent on services. Despite this growth, academic performance of students with disabilities remains troublingly low compared to general education students. To some extent, these differences reflect…

This study examines the effects of negative equity on children's academic performance, using data on children attending Florida public schools and housing transactions from the State of Florida. Our empirical strategy exploits variation over time in the timing of family moves to Florida in order to account for household sorting into neighborhoods…

Background/Context: High school reform is currently at the top of the education policy making agenda after years of stagnant achievement and persistent racial and income test score gaps. Although a number of reforms offer some promise of improving U.S. high schools, small schools have emerged as the favored reform model, especially in urban areas,…

A series of policy shifts over the past decade promises to change how Americans decide where to send their children to school. In theory, the expanded use of standardized test scores and the boom in charter schools will allow parents to evaluate their assigned neighborhood school, or move in search of a better option. But what kind of data do…

The Educational Priorities Panel undertook a study to find out how funds are distributed among community school districts in New York (New York) and how resources are distributed to individual schools within the system. For the first time, in 1992, the New York City Board of Education published detailed budgets for the 32 community school…

The questions of whether a number of equality and wealth neutrality measures agree, within the respective groups, when used to assess one state over time or to compare a number of states at one point in time are addressed. The basic analyses in this study show that for four assessments (equality in a state over time, wealth neutrality in a state…

This report evaluates alternative approaches to and measures of equity in state school finance plans. It also evaluates the Federal Expenditure Disparity Measure (FEDM). Following an introduction, Part II describes alternative conceptions of equity in education and identifies three components of these conceptions: groups treated, alternative…

This paper analyzes the distribution of resources and performance across 840 New York City elementary and middle schools. It presents empirical evidence on input and output of equity of expenditures, teacher resources, and academic achievement. Historically, researchers have studied interdistrict distributions, but given the large number of pupils…

Systematically analyzes the relationships between the goals and the tools of educational finance plans. Argues that an improved understanding of policies that affect school finance equity can be obtained by viewing equity in terms of a conceptual framework and by describing school finance plans in terms of their structural elements. (Author/IRT)

Conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues in resource allocation at the intradistrict and school levels are explored. The ways that equity concepts can apply are discussed, and an empirical analysis is presented of vertical equity at intradistrict and school levels in New York (New York). (SLD)

Reviews the school-level resource-allocation literature and presents findings of a study of school-district expenditures in Chicago, Forth Worth, New York, and Rochester. Horizontal equity results show that in Chicago, New York, and Fort Worth, most coefficients of variation are below 0.15. Rochester's system is slightly less equitable. For…

As the incomes of affluent and poor families have diverged over the past three decades, so too has the educational performance of their children. But how exactly do the forces of rising inequality affect the educational attainment and life chances of low-income children? In "Whither Opportunity?" a distinguished team of economists,…

In the mid 1990s, the U.S. Congress requested a major study of the U.S. system of elementary and secondary education finance by the National Research Council (NRC). This volume of background papers was prepared in conjunction with one part of the study. It includes eight papers commissioned by the NCR's committee to inform its discussions about…