Adequacy is a key issue propelled by high court decisions across the states. Initially the equity of funding systems that resulted in "savage inequalities" between school districts within a state based on property wealth was at issue. However, just since 1989, with the state supreme court decision in Kentucky finding the system unconstitutional…

This study focuses on a cost analysis conducted for the purpose of improving education in Illinois. The study explores educational funding in Illinois using 2005 Illinois School Report Card data, as collected by the Illinois State Board of Education. The study strives to make transparent the purpose, key stakeholders, methods, and intended use of…

This article complements the one written by George Psacharopoulos. It builds on the market returns to education that are measured by increments to earnings and to pure economic growth. It considers the additional nonmarket private returns to education, but it also considers the social benefits of education that benefit others in the community and…

As the amount of money available for various publicly supported enterprises decreases, the relationship of money to purchases made intensifies as a concern. This question of input to output always has been an economist's focus of concern. However, the production function analyses carried out have been inconclusive, as the output for educational…

This article focuses on the change in selected state-level school finance variables from 1970 to 2000, with particular attention to the changes in these variables and school finance litigation decisions in states with and without state-level tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) or supermajority requirements (SMRs). The magnitude of the decrease…

In this article we analyze the dynamics of endowment spending and real endowment values using rules that tie endowment spending to inflation. Numerical examples demonstrate that under a pure inflation rule, spending rates tend to drift away over time from the appropriate rate, leading to either rising or falling real endowment values. Under a…

A large body of literature examines disparities in school funding across districts. Berne and Stiefel (1984) developed the standard framework for measuring school finance equity, and the measures catalogued there have been applied extensively to assess funding disparities across districts. Much of this literature has focused on measures of…

Grade retention is a common practice used when students fail to meet required benchmarks. Therefore, it is important that we understand the relative benefits and costs associated with students repeating a grade. In this article we analyze the costs and benefits of grade retention. In our examination of retention, we obtain our calculations of the…

There is significant public policy concern that teacher salaries in the United States are insufficient to make teaching in public schools financially attractive; consequently, there are not enough high-quality teachers. This concern has been particularly acute of late for two reasons. First, new empirical research shows teacher quality to be the…

State governments are in the midst of one of the most severe fiscal crises of the last half century. The magnitude of the fiscal challenges facing state and local governments highlights the importance of sound fiscal planning and access to key financial indicators. The objective of this article is to develop a financial condition indicator system…

This article proposes a general conception of educational adequacy and draws on a lengthy history of economic theory and emerging empirical evidence to support that conception. The author reviews empirical methods for measuring educational adequacy and synthesizes findings from a number of recent studies of the cost of an adequate education. He…

The fight over school funding in most states involves a long battle in the courts that may span several years and never have a definitive endpoint because resistance to adequate funding of public schools appears to be endemic to government processes. The "DeRolph" case, first filed by the plaintiffs in December 1991, is one such legal battle over…

The fight over school funding in most states involves a long battle in the courts that may span several years and never have a definitive endpoint because resistance to adequate funding of public schools appears to be endemic to government processes. The "DeRolph" case, first filed by the plaintiffs in December 1991, is one such legal battle over…

Since contemporary school finance litigation began in the 1960s, almost every state has experienced school finance litigation or the threat of litigation. To date, 45 states have encountered lawsuits challenging their funding of public schools. Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, and Utah are the five states that have had no school funding…

Every year there is a substantial flow of people into teaching roles as entrants or as movers from one school to another. Each such move involves attraction of the person to the job. Data for 1999-2000 reveal several important findings about teacher staffing. In 1999-2000, out of a teaching workforce of about 3.45 million, there were about 535,000…