State Education Finance and Governance Profile: Louisiana

Since the separate-but-equal era, students attending schools with high concentrations of Black students have attempted to improve the quality of their educations through school finance litigation. Because of the negative effects of racial isolation, Black students might consider mounting school finance litigation to force states to explicitly address the problems experienced by school districts with high concentrations of Black students (Green, Baker, &; Oluwole, 2008). This article assesses the role of the courts in remedying the disparities experienced by high-concentration Black school districts through school finance litigation. The first section provides a brief overview of prior attempts to challenge racial funding disparities in the federal courts. The second section discusses the importance of considering race in future school finance litigation. The third section assesses whether plaintiffs from high-concentration Black school districts can obtain equal educational opportunity through state courts.     

从教育财政中性到教育的充分性--美国教育财政诉讼及其对教育财政改革的促进作用

本文主要研究了美国教育财政诉讼中其法律依据和教育公平标准的转变.法院审查教育财政制度的法律依据主要是联邦和州宪法公平保护条款、州宪法教育条款,法院采用的公平标准先是财政中性原则,后来演变为充分性原则.法律诉讼是推动美国教育财政制度改革的有效途径.     

School Finance Litigation: The Promises and Limitations of the Third Wave

Equity and adequacy in school finance has been a concern of scholars and reformers since the early 1900s and became a subject of court litigation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite intensified school finance litigation and legislation over the past several decades, school systems in the United States continue their struggle to operate equitably and adequately. This persistent inequity, both in terms of educational inputs and outcomes, has generated a long and complex series of lawsuits, which we attempt to summarize in this article.     

Suing for your supper? Resource allocation, teacher compensation and finance lawsuits

Despite a large literature examining the effect of litigation on education finance and student achievement, there is relatively little recent evidence about how extra resources generated by litigation are spent. This paper uses national data to examine the effects of high court finance rulings from 1991 to 2002 on school districts’ education spending: including the categories of capital, plant, and support expenses as well as the teacher wage bill. It also decomposes the latter change into a quantity effect from teacher hiring and a price effect due to increased wages. I find that the largest spending increase comes from salary increases to teachers, with other large increases for hiring more instructors and increasing support spending. Further evidence suggests that the higher salaries are manifest more in an increased experience premium rather than higher salaries for new teacher hires. This evidence helps rationalize the role teachers unions play in supporting, and sometimes originating finance lawsuits.     

美国“父母即教师”项目(PAT)的发展及效果评估

20世纪以来,美国社会的急剧变化使家庭系统面临巨大的压力并引发一系列社会问题,致使美国开始开展增加家庭教育的知识与技能、预防和减少家庭危机的系列研究与实践。以美国密苏里州为代表的"父母即教师"项目(ParentsAsTeachersProgram,PAT),关注孩子在校园的表现与家长参与的互动关系,通过丰富的项目研究实践来提高家长的教育水平,有力地促进了家长有效参与到孩子的发展中去。美国各州普遍实践的"父母即教师"项目的评估表明,参加该项目的父母在育儿技巧、参与的程度与质量方面有显著提升;孩子在认知与入学适应能力等方面也有明显提高。该项目尤其是对贫穷家庭的孩子和非白人家庭的孩子影响更大。     

The impact of bargaining and bargaining statutes on the earnings of public school teachers: A comparison in California and Missouri

Among labor economists there is a long-standing interest in the effects of collective bargaining in the public sector. Among industrial relations experts interest exists in the impact that differences in the legal status of public bargaining have on the outcomes of the bargaining process. It is the purpose of this article to shed some light on both questions by estimating the impact of collective bargaining on the earnings of public school teachers in the state of Missouri and then comparing the results with those obtained in the previous study for the state of California. The results reveal the same basic patterns and magnitudes of bargaining effects in the two states despite the differences in the legal status of bargaining.     

Peace education in an urban school district in the United States

The Black-White achievement gap presents perhaps the most important issue in education. Legal actions play a role in the efforts to reduce and eliminate the gap. School finance adequacy litigation offers the most widely used legal strategy to seek fairer outcomes for children. However, the literature is sparse with regard to the impact such litigation has on student outcomes. This article addresses the extent to which adequacy litigation functions as a means of narrowing the achievement gap. It sets forth evidence showing that successful adequacy cases relate positively to African American achievement on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress assessments. However, the results also show that factors normally outside the purview of adequacy litigation, such as the racial composition of the school, also contribute to student outcomes. Therefore, it is argued that adequacy litigation offers a means for reducing the achievement gap, but that it would be more effective if combined with nonmonetary remedies, such as integrating public schools.     

A Framework for Choice Remedy Litigation

Although school choice proponents have generally been on the offensive in legislative arenas over the past 2 decades, they have played almost constant defense in the judiciary, seeking to prevent courts from undoing school choice programs. Opponents typically wield state constitutional provisions against school choice programs. Properly construed, such provisions often are intended not to thwart but to secure educational opportunities. School choice supporters should consider taking the offensive, applying such provisions toward their intended ends by challenging defective schools and seeking meaningful remedies for children trapped in them. Choice remedy litigation can provide an effective complement to legislative efforts in the larger campaign to secure for disadvantaged children the precious educational opportunities that are their constitutional right.     

Editors’ introduction

In response to court rulings, states such as California and Washington have sought to promote greater equality in per pupil spending by shifting from local financing of public education to state financing. In this article, we investigate how constraints on local discretion resulting from this shift to state financing influence the level and growth of education spending. The analysis uses an expenditure function framework and a 21-year panel for the 50 states. To understand the extent to which expenditures are influenced by constraints on local discretion, we distinguish between court-ordered and other reforms of school finance systems. We show that the stringency of constraints on local discretion determines the effects of reforms on the level and growth of spending. In addition, we find that, for any type of reform, the characteristics of a state's population and of that state's schools determine the direction and magnitude of the postreform changes in spending.     

A future at risk: children having children

Every day in the US, over 3000 teenagers become pregnant. The US adolescent pregnancy rate is higher than that in most other developed countries and is increasing. About half of the teenage pregnancies result in a live birth, and most of these mothers are unmarried and will not finish high school. The root cause of this problem is that the young women have a sense of worthlessness and hopelessness about their future that makes them establish the relationships that leave them with babies they are ill-equipped to rear. This is creating an ever-growing underclass condemned to poverty, to a dependency on welfare, and to continue the cycle. All of this results in an ever increasing burden on taxpayers. In Missouri, a bill was enacted in 1990 to address a number of school-related issues that are impacted by premature parenthood. Based on research, the bill makes schools responsible for the continued enrollment of pregnant teens. Alternative programs for pregnant and teen parents receive state aid through guidelines established by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education which allow local school districts to design their own programs. Nationwide research indicated that the greatest need of the teenage parents is obtaining appropriate child care. Parenting education is also of vital importance as is appropriate prenatal care. These strategies, in addition to intervening in the lives of middle grade students to help them avoid premature parenthood, form the basis of a 5-step program developed by the Committee for Economic Development to address the problem of teen parenthood. In Missouri, emphasis has also been placed on involving teen mothers in the education of their children so that the children are ready for kindergarten. Despite the proven cost-effective nature of these programs for teen parents (which help avoid additional pregnancies), very few states have encouraged such programs, apparently because of the up-front costs. Until Americans decide to devote sufficient resources to this problem, it will continue to place the future of all of society at risk.     

Foreword

Despite growing interest in the condition of school facilities as a dimension of school finance adequacy, reliable measures of capital stock for large samples of schools are hard to come by. In this article, we offer new methods for (a) measuring the existing capital stock of public schools, (b) defining adequacy in school facilities, and (c) measuring the cost of bringing existing school facilities up to an adequate standard. We apply our procedures to all school districts in Michigan, one of the few states that offers no state aid to local districts for the construction of capital facilities. Our estimates indicate large variations in school buildings and facilities across local communities that are highly correlated with local property wealth. Because we use publicly available data that are recently available for school districts nationwide, these methods can be readily replicated for other states.     

Learning mathematics in mainstream secondary schools: experiences of students with Down’s syndrome

The key questions are: is it true that persons with Down’s syndrome can study mathematics only at a very elementary level? Might it be possible that their difficulties are mainly restricted to some fields, such as numeracy and mental computation, but do not encompass the entire domain of mathematics? Is the use of a calculator recommended? Is non-elementary mathematics accessible at most for the brightest students with Down’s syndrome? Our experience with about 30 students with Down’s syndrome, attending Italian mainstream secondary schools, is that these students can solve mathematical problems, using simple algebraic equations, though they may have very poor numeracy skills and need to use the calculator even with the simplest computations. Moreover, a familiarity with more advanced topics, as algebraic computation and analytic geometry, can help to raise their self-esteem and improve their numeracy too. Surprisingly, these students can learn and apply mathematical procedures in a variety of other different contexts. For instance, Francesca, an Italian student attending a secondary mainstream school, with a mild impairment in numeracy and relatively good linguistic skills, started with algebra and then learned to solve problems in the areas of nutritional science and of business administration. In the same way, Martina, a student in a mainstream secondary school with severe linguistic and numerical impairments, learned to work with Cartesian coordinates and formulas in analytic geometry. She began connecting points on a Cartesian plane, given their coordinates, and colouring in the shapes, such as flowers and animals, that they define. Applying the two points distance formula and verifying the result, she learned to measure the distance of two points with a ruler and to understand the concept of ‘millimetres’. The role of the inclusion in mainstream Italian schools of every disabled student, regardless the severity of the disability, has been crucial for these results.     

Policy Expansion of School Choice in the American States

This research study explores the policy expansion of school choice within the methodological approach of event history analysis. The first section provides a comparative overview of state adoption of public school choice laws. After creating a statistical portrait of the contemporary landscape for school choice, the authors introduce event history analysis as a methodological solution to the problem of measuring policy expansion. Building on previous studies in the social science literature, we proceed to discuss political, economic, and social factors related to the passage of charter school laws. A multivariate analysis finds state adoption is significantly related to partisan gubernatorial control, classroom spending, private schools, education finance litigation, and minority representation. The final section discusses the empirical results in the modern policy environment and proposes future directions for comparative state research.     

The effects of school board consolidation and financing on student performance

Over the last 20 years, states and provinces have become increasingly involved in the financing and administration of elementary and secondary education. Local school boards, however, still retain control over key aspects of the provision of education. Historically, these boards were organized at the community level so as to meet the wants of the local community. Today, states and provinces have become more interested in consolidating school boards and moving to a more centralized funding scheme. Do these changes result in improved student achievement? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining the school board consolidation and funding changes instituted by the province of Ontario. We differentiate the effects of the policy changes based on observed differences in the school boards prior to consolidation. We show that students in previously high wealth school boards perform worse after the policy change compared to students in previously low wealth school boards.     

美国克利夫兰市教育券诉讼案始末

美国克利夫兰市教育券诉讼案的审理和裁决过程十分复杂,历经法院的层层审理,最终由美国联邦最高法院做出判决,判决认为该教育券计划没有违背美国宪法第一修正案政教分离条款。该诉讼案由此也成为美国教育券实施过程中的一个里程碑,为之后教育券的实施奠定了法律基础。     

日本知识产权民事诉讼制度及其启示

日本通过司法改革,建立了新的知识产权诉讼制度,目的是提高知识产权纠纷解决效率、更好地保护知识产权法律关系,以充分体现和落实知识产权立国理念。日本的知识产权诉讼在很多方面有自己的特点,比如建立了知识产权法院、专家参加案件的审理、法官可以对专利无效的抗辩进行审理、注重商业秘密的保护等。日本知识产权民事诉讼制度对中国完善知识产权诉讼制度的探讨具有启发意义。中国应借鉴日本经验建立知识产权上诉法院,保障知识产权专家参与案件审理,在知识产权侵权诉讼中引入无效抗辩制度。     

“后社会化”阶段高校后勤财务管理体制改革与实践——以宁波大学为例

为了适应后勤社会化改革的需要,高校后勤相继建立起独立于学校财务的后勤财务制度。这种游离于学校财务之外的财务管理模式,目前已逐渐显露出许多问题。立足于所在学校后勤财务管理实际情况,通过实践探索和研究总结,提出高校后勤财务与学校财务合并对接进程中细化方案、制度先行的实现路径和确定改革的突破点、明确改革目标、制定改革方案等基本经验和思考。     

Indexing tuition to cost of education: The impact on students and institutions

This study examines an emerging trend in state higher education finance policy: the use of an index to establish tuition and fee levels at public institutions. Based on a national survey of tuition-setting policies, this study documents the increasing use of an indexing formula to determine tuition levels. Factors encouraging this trend are examined, and questions that must be addressed by state and institutional policymakers in adopting such a formula are discussed. Policy implications for states and institutions are also considered.     

Dependence on state funding,local educational opportunities,and access to high school credentials in israel

A major shortcoming of macro-spatial research undertaken to date in Israel pertains to the neglect of state investment-related measures and the extent to which they mediate unequal opportunities to learn (OTL) and educational opportunities between localities. In the present study, OTL refer to class size and high-school tracking patterns. Educational opportunities refer to two measures: the school system's holding power and access to educational credentials. Two specific questions were raised in this respect: first, we looked into the extent to which the size and ethnic stratification of Israeli localities, and their differential dependence on state financial schemes, affect available OTL and educational opportunities. Second, we examined how a locality's OTL affect educational opportunities. The data on which the present study is based are aggregated at locality level and refer to 89 localities, of which 21 were Arab and 78 were Jewish. Bentler's EQS Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) program was applied to test the research questions. The findings suggest that locality characteristics and dependence on state finance directly affect both OTL and educational opportunities. However, the school system's holding power and access to educational credentials is affected by differential mechanisms. On the one hand, locality-level variables and average class size significantly affect the school system's holding power. On the other hand, access to educational credentials is affected primarily by a locality's ethnic affiliation and its dependence on state funding. The implications of these findings for educational policy and reform are then discussed.