The past decade has seen a steady flow of important and innovative papers documenting the short- and long-term effects of finance reforms and the heterogeneity of the effects of reforms, exemplified by papers like Jackson, Johnson, & Persico (2016), Lafortune, Rothstein, & Schanzenbach (2018), Hyman (2017), and Candelaria and Shores (2019). Those papers have reinvigorated research on the effects of finance reforms, while raising important questions about how to best design a finance system and generate necessary revenues. The papers mentioned above, along with other papers too numerous to mention, have taken advantage of better data and better methods to address long-standing questions and generate provocative new answers. Since the landscape has changed quickly, policy makers and prospective researchers require a summary of the current state of the research on the effects of school finance reforms. Answers are also needed to such questions as: To what extent are lessons from the Great Recession applicable to the Covid-19 induced crisis. For example, how will states allocate cuts in grants and will those cuts undo state progress in equalizing educational access? Are there strategies for allocating resources that best preserve student learning? How do financing systems need to be modified to accommodate greater use of online education? How should school finance systems be designed to provide equal access (or, at a minimum, adequate access) to students with special needs? Why is there significant heterogeneity in the results of different finance reforms? What have been the effects of recent state efforts to reduce the role of the property tax in financing K-12 education? How should finance systems be designed to more effectively close persistent achievement gaps? How, if at all, should states integrate the financing of preschool education with the financing of elementary and secondary education? To help prepare the next generation of researchers and policy makers in t
This book summarizes recent research on the effects of school finance reforms, addressing questions on finance system design, revenue generation, and educational access. It targets professionals and students in education policy, providing updates and insights into contemporary finance and policy issues.
