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How much does spending vary across US public schools? And how much do the schools that low-income students attend spend compared to schools attended by their more advantaged peers? Students are educated in schools, which are frequently segregated by race and socioeconomic status, and spending can vary across schools within the same district. But this variation is invisible in revenue and expenditure data reported and analyzed at the district level, rather than school level, as has typically been done in the school finance literature to date (because of data limitations). Because the scope for within-district spending inequality is greater in larger districts that have many schools, differences in the number of schools per district may distort comparisons across states. To illustrate this phenomenon we analyze two states: Florida, which has 67 regular school districts, and Illinois, which enrolls fewer students in total, but has nearly 900 regular school districts. We construct measures of inequality and progressivity using school-level and district-level data. We show that across-school, within-district inequality is indeed higher in Florida than in Illinois. As expected, comparisons of inequality and progressivity based on district-level averages exaggerate the differences between the two states.

This paper examines whether schoolwide free meals affect disciplinary outcomes, focusing on the use of suspensions. Under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), schools serving sufficiently high-poverty populations may enroll their entire student bodies in free lunch and breakfast programs, extending free meals to some students who would not qualify individually, and potentially decreasing the stigma associated with school meals. We leverage the staggered rollout of CEP across states and school discipline measures for the near-universe of public schools to assess how disciplinary infractions change within a school as it becomes eligible for CEP. We conclude that schoolwide free meals reduced suspensions statistically significantly by approximately 17 percent for white male elementary students. Point estimates for other subgroups in elementary schools, and overall, are negative but smaller in magnitude; while treatment effects for black students are statistically insignificant, we also cannot rule out equal treatment effects between black and white students. We lack statistical power to rule large positive or negative effects for middle and high school students. The reductions among white students are somewhat larger in areas with high baseline poverty rates, consistent with universal meals programs serving an unmet need.

I. INTRODUCTION COVID-19 has created unprecedented logistical challenges for elementary and secondary schools, accompanied by new costs. At the same time, American school districts, which rely heavily on state aid, [...], The coronavirus has created an enormous--and expensive--challenge for elementary and secondary schools while simultaneously depleting the revenue sources on which public schools depend. During the Great Recession, the federal government filled in a significant share of lost revenue. In contrast, the federal response to date has been limited. If Congress decides to invest in future generations, it faces a range of options for how to structure an aid package. One key aspect for any stabilization package is how federal funds should be allocated to states. We consider the types of approaches used in recent proposals, during the Great Recession, and at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as in major ongoing federal education programs for compensatory and special education. We simulate the distribution of funds and show the considerable difference in how per-child allocations correlate with child poverty rates under the most likely alternative approaches. Keywords: school finance, federal aid JEL Codes: H7, 122

The world of research has much knowledge to benefit practitioners, but it can be hard for practitioners to know where and how to sift through the research base to find the most relevant information for their needs. By translating problems of practice into the narrower types of questions that research can answer, educators can locate relevant research faster--as well as more effectively diagnose the causes of the challenges they face. Research will never answer all the questions education leaders may have, and ultimately it is their job to make a decision even in the absence of complete information. But learning efficiently from those who have studied similar ideas before can help educators more quickly home in on the strategies that will benefit their students the most. The authors suggest brainstorming research questions in three main categories: questions about diagnosis, impact, and implementation.

Background Interventions in food pantry settings have the potential to improve health among clients at risk of diet-related disease. Purpose This study evaluates whether a cluster-randomized, behavioral intervention in food pantries resulted in improved client outcomes. Methods Sixteen Minnesota food pantries were randomized to an intervention (n = 8) or control condition (n = 8). The intervention offered pantries technical assistance to improve healthy food supply and implement behavioral economics strategies to promote healthy food selection. A convenience sample of adult clients were enrolled (paired sample, 158 intervention, 159 control) and followed for 1 year. Additional clients were enrolled at follow-up to assess food selection (follow-up sample, 85 intervention, 102 control). Analysis was limited to data from 11 pantries (5 intervention, 6 control) due to COVID-19. Outcome measures included Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015) total and subcomponent scores for 24-hr dietary recalls and client cart selections, and Life's Simple 7 (LS7) total and subcomponent scores. Multilevel mixed-effects models tested whether client outcomes differed by intervention condition. Results In adjusted models, there were no statistically significant differences by intervention condition in HEI-2015 or LS7 scores. Clients in intervention food pantries had improved Refined Grain subcomponent scores (p =.004); clients in control pantries had worsened Saturated Fat subcomponents scores (p =.019) and improved physical activity scores (p =.007). Conclusions The intervention did not result in improved diet quality or cardiovascular health as measured by HEI-2015 or LS7. Coordinated efforts across settings are needed to address health risks facing this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can the federal government do to help ensure that the public schools attended by children living in poverty have enough resources to serve their students? In this brief, we describe existing federal efforts to support education spending in high-poverty districts, discuss their limitations, and suggest alternative approaches for federal policy. We focus especially on the Education Finance Incentive Grant (EFIG) formula—a part of the compensatory Title I grant program designed to encourage changes to state school finance policy—and show that the incentives embedded in the formula are in fact negligible; revising the formula to be more effective would be difficult. Further, any attempt to incentivize desirable state policy faces a fundamental trade-off: Such policy can reinforce inequality because districts in states that do not respond to the incentives by adopting desirable policies also do not receive (as much) federal funding. We argue that federal policy should be more attentive to state fiscal capacity because it is an important determinant of district-level school spending, and the federal government is uniquely positioned to address between-state inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the federal government and the states use intergovernmental grants to try to change the composition of local spending across different programs, as well as the distribution of resources across localities. Many states are now under court-order to use state education grants to reduce local disparities in education spending. While a substantial body of literature suggests that these court orders increase the level and progressivity of state education spending, there is little evidence on their broader effects on the total resources available not just for schools in low income districts, but for other programs across all localities. We find that states finance the required increase in education spending in part by reducing their aid to localities for other programs, particularly for wealthier districts. Thus, while court-ordered school finance equalizations do increase total state aid to localities for education, they do so at the expense of drawing state intergovernmental aid away from programs like public welfare, health, hospitals, and general services. These findings provide insight into the effectiveness of using earmarked funds to achieve redistribution.

One of the federal government's main elementary and secondary education programs is Title 1, which allocates money for compensatory education to school districts based on child poverty. I use sharp changes in per-pupil grant amounts surrounding the release of decennial census data to identify effects of Title I on state and local education revenue, and how much the program ultimately increases spending by recipient school districts. I find that state and local revenue efforts initially are unaffected by Title I changes, but that local governments substantially and significantly crowd out changes in Title I within in a 3-year period. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The quality of care received by Medicare beneficiaries varies across areas. We find that states with higher Medicare spending have lower-quality care. This negative relationship may be driven by the use of intensive, costly care that crowds out the use of more effective care. One mechanism for this trade-off may be the mix of the provider workforce: States with more general practitioners use more effective care and have lower spending, while those with more specialists have higher costs and lower quality. Improving the quality of beneficiaries’ care could be accomplished with more effective use of existing dollars.

Many states are under court-order to reduce local disparities in education spending. While a substantial body of literature suggests that these orders and the resulting school finance equalizations have increased the level and progressivity of state education spending, there is little evidence on the broader effects of such measures on the change in total resources available not only for schools, but for other local government programs as well. When states spend more on education, both state and local budget constraints change, which may affect both state and local spending and revenue decisions. We find that while mandated school finance equalizations increase both the level and progressivity of state spending on education, states finance the required increase in education spending in part by reducing their aid to localities for other programs. Local governments, in turn, respond to the increases in state taxation and spending by reducing both their own revenue-raising and their own spending on education and on other programs. Thus, while state education aid does increase total spending on education, it does so at the expense of drawing resources away from spending on programs like public welfare, highways, and hospitals. These findings provide insight not only into the ultimate incidence of mandated increases in state education aid, but more broadly into the effectiveness of using earmarked funds to achieve redistribution.

In 2017, a community-University of Minnesota collaborative conducted a statewide survey of food pantry clients. Of the 188 food pantries surveyed, 4321 individual client surveys were returned, from which 2,251 open-ended responses were analyzed. Respondents shared gratitude for the food pantry in meeting their needs for food and support. Many described accessing healthy food that was needed to address health needs. Respondents described life circumstances and hardships that led to food pantry use. The supportive environment provided by food pantries positions them to address the needs of clients, including those with complex health needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An argument on the use of financial compensation as a recruitment tool in medical research is presented. It is shown that investigators design compensation schemes take economic forces into account.

The charitable food system is rapidly evolving. Interventions that target the food pantry environment and use behavioral economics are in high demand, but can be difficult to implement in a low-resource setting. This is an analysis of secondary, environment-level outcomes in a food pantry intervention (SuperShelf); the study evaluates whether the intervention resulted in measurable changes to the food pantry environment and improved diet quality of the food available to clients, compared with a control group of food pantries. Eleven food pantries were randomized to an intervention (n = 5) or control (n = 6) condition and completed baseline and one-year follow-up measures between 2018 and 2020. The intervention addressed healthy food supply and the appeal of healthy foods using behavioral economics. Assessments included manager surveys, intervention fidelity, food inventory, and food supply tracked over 5 days. Measures included change in intervention fidelity (range 0–100) with four subcomponents; Healthy Eating Index scores (HEI-2015, range 0–100) with 13 subcomponents; and Food Assortment Scoring Tool scores (FAST, range 0–100). Descriptive analyses and t -tests examined pre–post changes within and between intervention arms. Average fidelity scores increased from baseline to follow-up in the intervention group compared with the control group (p <.001), as did FAST scores (p =.02). Average HEI-2015 Total scores increased in the intervention group by 6.3 points and by 1.6 points in the control group, but the difference in change between groups was not statistically significant (p =.56). The intervention was implemented with high fidelity at five sites, with some evidence of change in the nutritional quality of the food available on the shelf to clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]