School Finance and Funding

Source: Annenberg Institute at Brown University

Date: January 2025

Framework for Evaluating & Reforming Education Finance Systems

"This paper presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating and reforming education finance systems to ensure equity, adequacy, and equal opportunity in publicly funded education. We summarize decades conceptual work, explaining our evolving understanding of the role and purpose of school finance systems, leading to our current framing that the purpose of these systems is to deliver the resources necessary for schools to provide all children equal opportunity to achieve common, adequate outcome goals. We provide a two-part, four step sequence of empirical methods for 1) evaluating whether and to what extent current systems achieve this goal (Part 1: What is), and 2) (Part 2: What should be) calibrating or recalibrating a school funding system to better achieve this goal. We follow with a discussion of lessons learned from recent applications of our framework in U.S. states, in both elementary and secondary school systems and community college systems. We conclude with implications for the path forward for broader application of the framework."

Diversity

Source: PPI

Date: 2/20/2025

A Way Out of the DEI Wars

When both sides in the DEI wars suppress free speech and try to police how citizens think, what is the way out? This report lays out a completely different vision that would end troubling DEI bureaucracies and replace them with new forms of civic education that seek to bring people of different backgrounds together and emphasize what they have in common as Americans. New policies would benefit economically disadvantaged people of all races, including those whose prospects have been stunted by the economic legacy of racial discrimination. The animating vision of these policies would embrace the wonderful diversity of the United States and honor people of all backgrounds as fully American but also recognize that the genius of liberal democracy is to transcend tribalism to create a shared American identity centered around fundamental principles.

Education and the Workplace

Source: Bellwether

Date: 2/19/2025

Making It Work: Ten Stories of Promise and Progress in High School Work-based Learning

Work-based learning opportunities are an essential component of many high school students' learning journeys- providing opportunities to acquire new skills, broaden understanding of career pathways, and enhance employability after graduation.

In 2021, Bellwether and American Student Assistance conducted an analysis of work-based learning policies in all 50 states and D.C. to establish a baseline. Making It Work: Ten Stories of Promise and Progress in High School Work-based Learning revisits 10 states to share their progress since then.

Each of the 10 states is taking a different approach to improving their policies, from launching new programs to providing additional funding to strengthening data collection. These examples highlight the progress states are making and provide inspiring models for similar improvements nationwide.

Politics, Policy, and School Practices

Source: Heritage Foundation

Date: 2/20/2025

An Education Reconciliation Agenda for the 119th Congress: 12 Reforms

By leveraging the budget reconciliation process, the 119th Congress has a unique opportunity to enact targeted education reforms that appropriately reduce federal intervention in education while also addressing inefficiencies and restoring trust in the use of taxpayer funds. Strategic measures, such as imposing an excise tax on contributions to universities from countries or entities of concern and clawing back grants for indirect costs, ensure fiscal responsibility while also safeguarding national interests. Additionally, establishing a payroll tax on salaries from diversity, equity, and inclusion offices that receive federal education funds and ending Unrelated Business Income Tax loopholes demonstrate a commitment to eliminating unnecessary federal expenditures and workarounds.

School Evaluation

Source: Fordham Institute

Date: 2/20/2025

Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality

The search for alternative indicators of school quality has ignored a powerful data point that most schools already collect-a student's grade point average. Might it also be used to evaluate schools?

To find out, we asked the University of Maryland's Jing Liu and co-authors Seth Gershenson (American University) and Max Anthenelli (UMD) to conduct parallel analyses of nearly a decade of student-level course and demographic data from Maryland and North Carolina.

Overall, the results suggest that GPA-based indicators of middle school and high school readiness are a potentially valuable supplement to test-based value-added measures.

School Finance and Funding

Source: EdChoice

Date: 2/18/2025

The Enrollment Decline Windfall

Contrary to the common argument that school choice programs drain resources from public schools, this report finds that districts with declining enrollment actually see greater increases in per-student funding than those with enrollment gains. While total district budgets may fluctuate with enrollment changes, per-pupil funding-the more relevant metric-increases when student numbers decline. Analysis of pre-COVID data shows that most American public school districts were already experiencing enrollment declines, yet those losing students saw larger per-student revenue and expenditure increases than districts with growing enrollments. Factors such as stable local funding, state formulas not always tied to enrollment, and federal funds that do not decrease proportionally contribute to this trend. With national public school enrollment projected to drop by 2.7 million students by 2031, understanding these financial patterns is critical. The report provides the first direct evidence that declining enrollment does not necessarily harm district finances but instead often results in more resources per remaining student.

Review of Fiscal Effects of School Choice: The Costs and Savings of Private School Choice Programs in America Through FY 2022

Source: EdChoice

Reviewed by: Mark Weber, Rutgers University

The expansion of voucher programs, which provide taxpayer-financed subsidies for families enrolling students in private schools, has prompted a debate about their fiscal impact. A recent EdChoice report argues that these programs do not negatively affect public school finances and actually save taxpayers substantial sums of money. Today's review explains how this argument rings hollow.

In his review of Fiscal Effects of School Choice: The Costs and Savings of Private School Choice Programs in America Through FY 2022, Mark Weber of Rutgers University and the New Jersey Policy Perspective walks readers though the report's simplistic and unvalidated methods, showing how they lead to the invalid conclusion that the programs result in taxpayer savings.

Voters Reject Vouchers-Again!

By: Parker Baxter, Michael Hartney, & Vladimir Kogan, EducationNext

The defeat of the school choice proposals suggests that support for voucher programs remains surprisingly weak among Republican rank-and-file, and that the theoretical benefits of choice don't hold much appeal for the large number of families satisfied with their neighborhood public schools.

What you need to know about Section 504

By: Kara Arundel, K-12Dive

This is a strong article to share with those who don't understand why 504 plans are important in schools.

DOGE's death blow to education studies

By: Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report

"...researchers described the canceled projects at the department's Institute of Education Sciences as rigorous evaluations of how the federal government spends education dollars, efforts to improve the reading and math skills of U.S. students and guides for teachers on evidence-based methods of instruction. Many of the projects were near completion and had mostly been paid out, which means that the implied savings are likely much less than $881 million touted by DOGE."

What the Assault on Public Education Means for Kids with Disabilities

By: Jessica Winter, The New Yorker

Paywall article but so good we had to share! "The vast majority of I.D.E.A. rights only apply to public-school students," Jessica Levin, who is litigation director at the nonprofit Education Law Center, told me. I.D.E.A. mandates certification requirements for special-education teachers and shields students from being punished for manifestations of their disability. It also enshrines parents' rights to be involved in developing their children's education plans and to argue for more or different services, which can range from speech-language or occupational therapy to assistive technology. "These rights are all lost when a student goes to a private school," Levin said.

Trump order boosts school choice, but there's little evidence vouchers lead to smarter students or better educational outcomes

By: Charles J. Russo & Suzanne Eckes, The Conversation

"We are professors who focus on education law, with special interests in educational equity and school choice programs. While proponents of school choice claim it leads to academic gains, we don't see much evidence to support this view - but we do see the negative impact they sometimes have on public schools."

GreatLakesCenter.org