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The academic and economic benefits of school spending are well-established, but focusing on these outcomes may underestimate the full social benefits of school spending. Recent increases in U.S. child mortality are driven by injuries and raise questions about what types of social investments could reduce child deaths. We use close school district tax elections and negative binomial regression models to estimate effects of a quasi-random increase in school spending on county child mortality. We find consistent evidence that increased school spending from passing a tax election reduces child mortality. Districts that narrowly passed a proposed tax increase spent an additional $243 per pupil, mostly on instruction and salaries, and had 4% lower child mortality after spending increased (6-10 years after the election). This increased spending also reduced child deaths of despair (due to drugs, alcohol, or suicide) by 5% and child deaths due to accidents or motor vehicle accidents by 7%. Estimates predicting potential mechanisms suggest that lower child mortality could partly reflect increases in the number of teachers and counselors, higher teacher salaries, and improved student engagement. [Funding for this report was provided by the Gilead Foundation Creating Possible Fund and the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University.]

In November 2020, Duval County voters will decide on a half-penny sales tax to fund upgrades to public school buildings across the district. Revenue will be spent to improve public school buildings for traditional and charter schools. Following the 2020 passage of House Bill 7097, revenue from the sales tax will be allocated to charter school facilities on the basis of student enrollment. For traditional public schools, revenue will be spent according to the district's master facilities plan, which is based on the condition of the school buildings. To inform community discussions ahead of the vote, the Jacksonville Public Education Fund (JPEF) published research highlighting the importance of high quality school facilities to student performance and achievement. To continue the conversation, this deeper dive looks at the policy and funding landscape of school buildings for both types of public schools.

In a series of new questions in this year's poll, conducted November 26 to November 30, 2018, Jacksonville community members shared their views on what makes a high quality school. Participants said teachers and parents have a greater impact on school quality than system leaders or community groups; in essence, the closer you are to the student, the greater impact you have in the student's educational experience. Key findings include: (1) Participants said teachers, parents and school leaders were the three most important factors for school quality; (2) When determining a school's quality, participants said students' preparation for the next grade level (54.8 percent) and achievement regardless of race and income (22.5 percent) were more important than students' scores on state tests; (3) The community continues to say they value the work of teachers: When choosing a school, participants said its reputation for good teachers was the most important factor in their decision, even more than the school's grade; and (4) As in years past, most participants (70 percent) said they would support a small tax increase to benefit public schools. [This survey was conducted by the Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL) at the University of North Florida (UNF).]

Early childhood education programs play an important role in child family-to-school transition. In 1998, California voters passed Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Act, which levied a 50-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes and other tobacco products to finance programs for children ages 0-5. In less than two decades, First 5 Kern has administered more than $180 million from Proposition 10 to support early childhood services. Following the state statute to "use outcome-based accountability to determine future expenditures", this Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) includes three components: (1) configuration of the trend in program costs and benefits during 2010-2017; (2) review of comparable programs to support the transfer of long-term benefits from well-documented projects to First 5 Kern-funded programs; and (3) bootstrapping and value-added assessments of CBA outcomes across the adjacent funding cycles. Five research questions have been examined extensively in this trend data analyses across 39 programs: (1) How many programs have reached a status to pay for themselves with First 5 Kern funding? (2) What is the contribution of First 5 Kern, through partnership building, in improving the programs' financial conditions? (3) What programs would have been otherwise unavailable without First 5 Kern funding? (4) What programs became more sustainable, due to First 5 Kern's support for external fund leveraging, between the adjacent funding cycles? (5) What is the long-term return of First 5 Kern-funded programs and services? Value-added assessments have been conducted to discount the service benefit and cost in the 2018 dollar value. Bootstrapping methods were adopted to construct 95% confidence intervals for the benefit-cost ratio estimation. The result showed service benefits at least double Proposition 10 investments in Kern County during the seven-year period.

First five years are identified as a critical period of child growth in scientific literature. In 1998, California voters passed Proposition 10 that appropriated a 50 cent per pack tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products to support early childhood development. As a result, Kern County Children and Families Commission administered over $10 million in FY 2013-14 to fund 40 programs in focus areas of "Child Health," "Family Functioning," and "Child Development." In this study, variability of partnership strength is partitioned at the "program" and "focus area" levels. The result indicates co-existence of program effects with the significant funding impact, including "center-based" vs. "home-based" services, "initiation" or "collaboration" in partnership building, Summer-Bridge learning, referral support, and program outreach in hard-to-reach communities.

This project attempted to answer the following question: what are the impacts of school spending on student outcomes? The Texas education system provides a unique opportunity to examine this question and make a large and significant contribution to the school finance literature. Over the last two decades, Texas made two large changes to school finance: Chapter 41 of the Education Code, introduced in 1993, and Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code, introduced in 2001. Chapter 41, commonly known as the Robin Hood redistribution program, was appropriately titled, as it sought to equalize spending between school districts by the state transferring funds from wealthier districts to poorer districts. Chapter 313 is a transfer program that facilitates large increases to a school district's revenues generated from property taxes. The empirical strategy used in this project was based on a quasi-experimental methodology utilizing traditional regression approaches. Specifically, the authors looked to evaluate the causal impact of the policies by comparing the outcomes of an unaffected control group to a treated group. Unfortunately, this research was unable to provide any answers to the research questions the authors set out to answer. This is due to several unforeseen flaws with the empirical strategies that proved to be too difficult to overcome.

This study examines the use of Schools of Choice throughout Michigan over the last decade. Nearly 100,000 Michigan students use Schools of Choice to attend a school outside of the district in which they live. Participation has grown steadily, with enrollment growing by 144 percent over the past 10 years. This study finds that students enter districts that have higher graduation rates and higher test scores. On average, Schools of Choice students chose districts with higher pupil-teacher ratios, lower expenditures per pupil and higher average teacher salaries. An appendix includes locale codes.

Increased attention to proposed federal early childhood education (ECE) legislation has sparked a debate on what the future holds for state-funded ECE systems. This brief explores how the goal of universal preschool is being shaped by the federal agenda and examines state programs in various stages of development. President Obama's Preschool for All program is outlined, along with associated funding strategies. An overview of selected state-funded preschool programs is provided. Recommendations for state policymakers are included: (1) Build upon existing ECE infrastructure; (2) Make state-supported ECE programs a comprehensive investment; and (3) Implement a state-supported ECE program in phases.

Michigan's state-run school system is the largest and most expensive government service taxpayers support. It employs more than 350,000 people who work in one of the more than 4,100 different entities. The total amount this system expends each year adds up to more than $20 billion. Given the enormity and complexity of the system, it's no surprise that a number of myths exist about how public schools are funded. It is important to understand both the basis and the truth behind these myths, especially in an economically depressed era. When times were good in Michigan, mismanaged and misused funds could be whitewashed with new resources. In today's environment, however, school finances warrant greater scrutiny, which is why accurate school funding information is so important. Moving forward, Michigan will have to address the likelihood that for the next several years, schools on average will have fewer real dollars per pupil than they have had in the past. In order to best manage this challenge, policymakers need to understand clearly how their decisions will impact the well-being of students, districts, school employees and the taxpayers who foot the bill. (Contains 67 footnotes.)

This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper, which was prepared at the request of the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, compares athletic departments' share of revenue from commercial sources with that of the rest of the schools' activities to assess the degree of their commercialization. It also discusses the benefits of intercollegiate sports programs and some of the issues that might arise if the Congress decided to alter the treatment of those programs in the tax code. In accordance with CBO's mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, the paper makes no recommendations. The CBO concludes that: (1) Athletic departments in NCAA Division I schools derive a considerably larger share of their revenue from commercial activities than do other parts of the universities; (2) In the case of Division IA schools (a subset of schools in Division I that meet NCAA requirements for football programs), 60 percent to 80 percent of athletic departments' revenue comes from activities that can be described as commercial. That proportion is seven to eight times that for the rest of the schools' activities and programs, suggesting that their sports programs may have crossed the line from educational to commercial endeavors. Revenue from commercial activities accounts for a much smaller share of athletic department revenue (20 percent to 30 percent) for schools in the rest of Division I; and (3) Nonetheless, removing the major tax preferences currently available to university athletic departments would be unlikely to significantly alter the nature of those programs or garner much tax revenue even if the sports programs were classified, for tax purposes, as engaging in unrelated commercial activity. As long as athletic departments remained a part of the larger nonprofit or public university, schools would have considerable opportunity to shift revenue, costs, or both between their taxed and untaxed sectors, rendering efforts to tax that unrelated income largely ineffective. Changing the tax treatment of income from certain sources, such as corporate sponsorships or royalties from sales of branded merchandise, would be more likely to affect only the most commercial teams; it would also create less opportunity for shifting revenue or costs. Appended is research on certain benefits of intercollegiate sports. (Contains 3 tables, 1 box, and 35 footnotes.)

The system that finances Michigan's schools from kindergarten through 12th grade is a perennial topic of conversation among policymakers, parents, taxpayers and voters. A constructive discussion of this issue, however, requires a sound knowledge of the financial workings of Michigan's elementary and secondary school system. This knowledge is precisely what the authors have attempted to provide. While the Mackinac Center for Public Policy has developed numerous policy recommendations over the years, this primer is exclusively informational. This primer addresses the following: (1) how revenues are raised for Michigan's elementary and secondary public school system; (2) how money is distributed to education programs and school districts once it is collected by various taxing authorities; and (3) how districts budget monies to be spent on the various activities involved in operating schools and other educational programming. This book is arranged in four sections. The first--and the shortest--is "A Brief Overview of the Structure of Michigan's Public School System," which defines a few basic terms and sketches the main local, state and federal agencies involved in financing Michigan's public school system. This overview should help readers unfamiliar with Michigan's public school structure navigate the remainder of the book. The second, third and fourth sections are considerably longer than the first and cover the three areas: tax revenues, distribution of revenues and financial management of those revenues by school districts. Appended are: (1) U.S. Department of Education Spending in Michigan; (2) Summary of "Durant" Court Decisions; and (3) Guide to a New School Finance Electronic Module. An index is included. (Contains 29 graphs, 238 footnotes, and 410 endnotes, footnotes.) [This paper was written with the assistance of Glenda Rader, Darcy Marusich, Alison Taylor, Steve Zakem, John Schwartz, Thomas Moline, Charles Pisoni, Gary Start, Paul Soma, Tim Yeadon, Mary Ann Cleary, Douglas Newcombe, Vicki Duso, Clark Volz, Howard Heideman, Paul Brown, Phil Boone, Patrick Dillon, Jayne Klein, and Dianne Easterling.]

This is the first in a trilogy of policy briefs discussing public education and taxes. This brief discusses the challenge facing Texas in funding public education. It also explains why the Texas Supreme Court's recent decision in "West Orange-Cove II" requires increased state appropriations for public education.

The Pennsylvania legislature is considering a school finance proposal, exemplified by House Bill 113 of the 2003 legislative session, that would shift some school funding away from local property taxes and toward state funds and local income taxes. The proposal would give greater proportional benefits to homeowners with lower property values. A shift toward broader-based and less regressive tax funding of the public schools would be admirable, as would the progressive nature of the proposed property tax relief. However, the proposal has two harmful features: (1) It would do virtually nothing to change the total revenue available to any school district in the state, but would simply replace some revenue that each district currently raises from local property taxes with revenue from local income taxes and additional state funds. In so doing, it would perpetuate Pennsylvania's current, highly inequitable pattern of school funding; and (2) It would impose a limit on increases in school tax rates in each district and prevent districts from obtaining additional revenue from new taxes. A district would be able to override these limits through voter approval in a referendum.One source of evidence is the research literature on outcomes in other states that have imposed limits on school taxes and funding. Although the details of limits imposed vary from state to state and no separate research analyzes proposals exactly like the Pennsylvania proposal, the literature on other states that have imposed limits is the best available gauge of the impact of a similar Pennsylvania proposal. This briefing paper reviews this research literature. (Contains 22 endnotes.)

The research reported in this document was undertaken to determine the relative costs of educating a child in a charter school and a traditional public school in Michigan. To assess the costs, the following research was done: a review of the laws that govern public schools in Michigan; a review of the statutes that govern the funding of public schools in Michigan; and three analyses to assess the relative costs of educating a child in a charter schools and a traditional public school. Following are some of the results of the analyses: (1) A review of the statutes indicated that charter schools are entitled by law to the same operational funding, or less, than the host school district, yet they receive no additional capital funding, establishing that charter schools cost taxpayers less than district schools; (2) charter schools receive $1,036 per student less, on average, than district schools; and (3) charter schools receive no capital funding, which accounts for the largest share of the disparity in funding between charter schools and traditional public schools. The report also contains findings from related research (literature reviews) of charter schools in Michigan. (Contains numerous tables.) (WFA)

In 1994, Michigan voters approved Proposal A, which reduced school property taxes, increased the sales tax, and established a per-pupil funding guarantee for public schools. This report describes the effects of Proposal A and challenges to it. Since Proposal A was implemented, funding for schools has grown substantially while property taxes have fallen, as promised. However, school districts have levied additional taxes, resulting in a millage-rate growth of over 60 percent in 6 years. Michigan legislators continue to explore ways to increase the taxing powers of local school districts beyond those allowed by Proposal A. One proposal would allow districts to use "sinking-fund" taxes to pay costs that go beyond their intended use. To better understand the impact of such legislation on taxpayers, this report simulated the effects of increased school sinking-fund taxes over a 10-year period and found a substantial tax increase. As a result, the report presents the following options for Michigan policymakers: (1) retain Proposal A; (2) consider regional taxes; (3) prohibit "double dipping"; (4) tighten allowable purposes for debt millage; (5) expand charter schools; and (6) insist on better management. (Contains nine charts and graphs, and photocopies of state documents itemizing Proposal A.) (WFA)

Vermont's Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997, "Act 60," was designed to rectify inequities in the state's funding of public education, as determined by the Vermont Supreme Court. This report examines the degree to which Act 60 has improved conditions over the last 5 years, focusing on the 3 main equity goals of Act 60 and the court's decision: student resource equity, tax burden equity, and academic achievement equity. Analysis of data for 2001-02 found that Act 60 has made significant progress in reducing inequities in student resources. The gap in per-pupil spending between wealthier and poorer towns dropped to $900 from $2100 in FY98. Act 60 significantly improved past inequities of tax burden for funding local schools. The percentage of income needed to support education dropped in all income categories but the decrease was most dramatic for those earning the least. Academic achievement inequities still exist. However, academic achievement has improved in all categories of wealth, and the gap between wealthier and poorer communities in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards has decreased. Notable and continuous progress is being made toward providing equal educational opportunities and reducing past educational inequities. The equity gains noted in a previous study have continued and, in most cases, strengthened. Appendices present the previous study's results, operational definitions of variables, and caveats about analyzing academic achievement. (Author/SV)

Over the past seven years, New York's cap on local property tax levies has generated billions of dollars in savings for homeowners and businesses, compared to previous trends. The cap has been especially effective in restraining school property taxes, which have long been the largest and fastest-growing component of New York's tax burden. The cap is flexible: its baseline "allowable levy growth factor" of 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, is modified by locally variable exclusions and exceptions, and can be overridden by a 60 percent vote of district residents. Nonetheless, advocates of higher school spending contend the law is unduly restrictive. "The tax cap … hurts poorest districts the most, placing the most severe limits on their ability to raise funds and punishing parents and other taxpayers in low-wealth districts who try to provide more funding for their children," says the head of the statewide teachers' union. A different story emerges from comparison of tax and spending data from 2011-12 to 2018-19. As illustrated in the charts and tables provided in this report. (1) Spending has risen faster--and taxes have increased more slowly--in low wealth "high need" districts; (2) Adjusted for enrollment, the average annual tax hike exceeded 3 percent in all but the poorest districts; (3) Thanks largely to exceptions for tax base growth, voter-approved debt payments and a one-time teacher pension cost spike in 2013-14, average taxes for all districts have increased 23 percent faster than the headline "growth factor" would have permitted since 2011-12.

This report examines the theoretical result of a change in the way Oklahoma could fund its common schools if it used a Texas tax system that relied heavily on an ad valorum tax structure or another taxation system. Using data from the 1999 school year, calculations of state aid for the more than 540 school districts were made for four scenarios: Oklahoma tax system without recapture, Oklahoma tax system with recapture, Texas system without recapture, and Texas system with recapture. Calculations were compared with one another of these scenarios for the 1999 school year. Results indicate that if there is a shift from state collection and dispersal of tax dollars for Oklahoma's common schools, a recapture mechanism could be used to maintain the level of fiscal neutrality that Oklahoma has enjoyed for the past several years. Recommendations include keeping the bulk of tax collections for schools at least at the present level of 60 percent from state sources, and examining how other tax structures would affect school funding. Attachment A shows student (statistical) weights used in calculations; Attachment B is a copy of the State Aid Formula used to calculate foundation and incentive aid for 1998-99. (Contains 23 references.) (RT)

Vermont's Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1997, Act 60, was designed to rectify educational inequities cited in the State Supreme Court ruling that the state's foundation formula was unconstitutional. This study examines the degree to which Act 60 has improved inequitable conditions in the three main areas cited in the court decision. Findings were that: (1) student resource equity has significantly improved, and financial resources spent on Vermont students no longer correlate to towns' property wealth; (2) tax burden equity has also improved significantly with the lowest-income households now paying the lowest percentage of income for school tax; and (3) academic achievement is still related to community wealth and spending per pupil, but student achievement in all categories of property wealth and spending has improved over the last 3 years, and the achievement gaps between the highest and the lowest property-wealth and spending categories have decreased over the past 3 years. Act 60 is performing according to the requirements of the court. Inequities are diminishing, but local control has not been abandoned. Tax burdens are more appropriately related to income. More children are performing better on statewide assessments. Seven appendices describe the Rural School and Community Trust, research methods, caveats when analyzing academic achievement, recommendations for future studies, definitions of variables used, contact information, and acknowledgements. (TD)

New York State's School Tax Relief Aid (STAR) heavily favors wealthier districts, partially reversing equalizing effects that state aid is designed to have. Normally state school aid helps bring less wealthy school districts closer to the standard of wealthier districts. It increases and makes up the lost revenue from taxpayers in the state as a whole. Increasing the property tax exemption reduces more from the burden of wealthier taxpayers than from less wealthy taxpayers, especially those in big cities. The third and fourth years are projected from previous trends, since the study was written halfway through the third year. Combined Wealth Ratio (CWR) and Operating Aid are the two important variables compared. CWR is designed so that the average is 1.0, with most schools varying from 0.3 to 3.0. Operating Aid is the primary form of state aid to school districts and is highly negatively correlated (-62.51 percent) with CWR. Wealthier districts receive more Operating Aid than less wealthy districts. The correlation between STAR and CWR is positive (12.43 percent in 1999). The districts were grouped by CWR into five equal-sized quintiles to determine the average levels of wealth and aid for each quintile, with each quintile having approximately the same number of students. The five large cities including New York City were examined separately. Data for this study were provided by the New York Office of Real Property Services and by the Department of Education. (RKJ)

A study examined educational property tax burdens in Nebraska counties, using data on property taxes levied, property values, and per capita income. The study found that the average school tax burdens for residents in the lowest third (by per capita income) of Nebraska counties, which were nearly all rural farmers and ranchers, were 88 percent higher than property tax burdens for residents in the top third counties. Recent efforts by the Nebraska Legislature at property tax relief have not related the relief to a household's property tax obligation relative to its income, thus delivering much less relief to those who are truly overburdened by property taxes. Other states have enacted "circuit breaker" statutes that allow income tax credits or property tax rebates when property taxes reach a certain percentage of household income. Recommendations for applying such legislation in Nebraska include providing a strong definition of "income" to prevent the sheltering of income, applying the circuit breaker to both agricultural and residential property, and applying it only to owners/operators of property. It is also recommended that the state's school funding formula incorporate the local capacity of a school system's property owners to pay the taxes and not base funding solely on the taxable property wealth of the system. Three appendices present nine fiscal parameters for each county, groupings of counties by per capita income, property taxes levied by government subdivisions, and sources of school funding in Nebraska. (TD)

Nebraska's small schools have been shortchanged by recently enacted school finance policies. LB 1114, which limited property tax levy rates, and LB 806, which changed the state aid distribution formula, were first implemented for the 1998-99 school year. These measures were intended to force cuts in school expenditures, especially among smaller, high-cost schools, and to bring about property tax relief. To some extent, these policies succeeded in the dual goals of property tax relief and school revenue reductions. But this limited success was accompanied by a high level of school finance inequity for small schools. This report documents how Nebraska school finance policy shortchanges small schools. Findings are based on comparisons of state aid and property tax revenues for the 1997-98 school year (the last year before LB 1114 and LB 806 implementation) with 1999-2000 (the most recent year with complete data). Small schools (those with fewer than 70 high school students) and their communities saw school revenues decline and received little property tax relief. In spite of a substantial overall increase in state aid, there was a major shift in aid away from small schools because the formula changed from size-based cost groups to sparseness cost groups. Small schools continued to provide the greatest share of school funding from property tax revenues. Recommendations are offered for basing state aid on actual costs while reducing the property tax burden. An appendix explains the methodology used. (Author/SV)

This article summarizes "The Majority Rule Act for Smaller Classes, Safer Schools and Financial Accountability" (Proposition 26). The Majority Rule Act deals with the percentage vote that a school district, county office of education, or community college, needs in an election to authorize local general-obligation bonds for school construction. It also provides for funding for classrooms in charter schools. Current law in California requires a two-thirds vote to approve local bonded indebtedness. The report details the major arguments for and against this policy and discusses how schools currently have two major sources of funds for facilities: local general-obligation bonds authorized by two-thirds of the voters in a school district or state general-obligation bonds authorized by a majority of all state voters. It describes how local general-obligation bonds are used for school buildings and how state bonds supplement local money. It details the need for new or renovated facilities, specifying how the majority of the schools in the state are more than 30 years old. Counted among proponents for the measure are major education organizations, charter-school advocates, and business groups. Opponents include the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association. A synopsis of the potential financial impact of Proposition 26 is provided. (RJM)

To improve the equity of Vermont's school finance system, the state legislature passed Act 60. This new funding mechanism is described, with a focus on the equity issues raised by the state supreme court. A court's decision struck down substantial dependence on local property taxes to provide revenue for local school districts. The report reviews the background of the case and describes how the court explained its position. The focus, however, is on the changes that the decision wrought in the finance system and the potential implications of these changes for school finance equity in the future, particularly the income-sensitive property tax provision that makes Vermont's system unique. The analysis centers on the basic structure of the reform--the block grant--which is funded through a statewide property tax. Ways to distribute these funds, such as through weighted pupil counts, were also reformed, and a process called an "equalized second tier" was implemented, which is a local option tax that is determined on the basis of the individual budget decisions made by local school boards. The transition to the new tax system and the categorical programs that are in place are described. (RJM)

In Brigham et al. v. State of Vermont (1997), the Vermont Supreme Court struck down the previous state-funding system and directed the legislature to come up with a new system that would eliminate the inequities among the local school districts. An analysis of this decision and its consequences is offered here. The paper recaps the funding system prior to 1997 and describes how the previous finance system relied too heavily on local property taxes. As state aid dropped, per pupil expenditures varied widely, ranging from $2,961 to $7,726. This inequity prompted the Brigham case and led to a massive restructuring of educational finance in the form of the Equal Education Opportunities Act. The state drew on a statewide property tax, block grants, an income-sensitive property tax, new taxes, and other programs to fund these financial changes. With the funding in place, the legislature stipulated that local control was the best way to allocate the resources. This emphasis on local control was leavened by a state-curriculum framework, new assessment standards, standardized achievement tests, local goal-setting and action plans, and state standards and yearly progress reports. In the first year of the program, poor towns moderately increased their spending and richer towns cut their budgets, indicators of increasing financial equity. (Contains 15 references.) (RJM)

This paper outlines school finance issues that have emerged due to litigation on the constitutionality of school funding at the state level. Such funding varies from state to state, ranging from 8 percent in New Hampshire to 74 percent in New Mexico; per-child expenditures range from $1,500 to $15,000. Beginning in the 1970s, poor school districts and some advocates for minority and disadvantaged children challenged the state-funding formula in the courts. These court cases have focused on the constitutional provisions on the ground of equity or adequacy. Equity is generally defined as a relatively equal per-pupil expenditure across the school districts in the state. Recent court cases have begun to address the issue of an "adequate" education for all students. States must shift their focus from monitoring students' inputs (student-to-teacher ratios) and focus on the outputs (graduation rates and reading levels). States must focus on the definition of what an adequate education is and what amount of funding is needed for all students to have a possibility of obtaining it. The paper describes the six different funding methods used to achieve an adequate education: flat grants, foundation programs, guaranteed tax base programs, percentage equalization programs, full state funding, and pupil weights. (DFR)