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A team of education, economics and public policy scholars has built a new tool that can quickly assess how a particular school finance reform proposal might impact individual California school districts.
The tool can be used to assess any formula that consolidates so-called “categorical” or restricted, special-purpose state and federal funds. It will be discussed at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Diego on Tuesday, April 14.
“California currently allocates more than $40 billion of tax revenue — more than $1,000 per resident — through a school finance system that is not rational or transparent,” said Heather Rose, assistant professor of education at UC Davis. “Reform is vital, and we hope this model will be a useful tool for legislators and others who are serious about achieving it.”
The model appears as an Excel appendix to a 2008 PPIC-sponsored report, “Funding Formulas for California Schools II: An Analysis of a Proposal by the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence.” It can be seen at http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=830.
AT LAST! Now, how to propogate …
