Analyzing who gains and who loses: The case of school finance reform in new york state

This study examines the impact of court-ordered finance reform in New York State resulting from Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State of New York on equity of inputs using synthetic controls. The findings herein indicate court mandated education finance reform in New York had little to no impact on equity of educational inputs despite an overhauled education finance system intending to distribute more state funding based on student need. In the period during and following the Great Recession, the State of New York chose to cut districts’ foundation aid, a form of aid designed to be distributed progressively, halting any improvement in equity. Had funding been distributed to districts according to the foundation formula that was specified by the education finance reform legislation passed in 2007, high poverty districts would have received more funding and disparities in funding across districts with similar characteristics would have been reduced. I also show that other forms of aid, which are regressively distributed, could have been cut instead of foundation aid, allowing for more funding to flow to high poverty districts in a time of fiscal constraint.

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Understanding the Equity Consequences of School-Finance Reform

Harvard Educational Review ◽

10.17763/haer.48.2.06652lv504715u13 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 193-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Lee Friedman ◽

Michael Wiseman

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

School Finance ◽

Finance Reform ◽

School Finance Reform ◽

Wide Range ◽

Before And After ◽

School Financing ◽

Empirical Tests ◽

The Impact

In this essay, Lee S. Friedman and Michael Wiseman discuss the economic, legal,and logical implications of school-financing methods now practiced in several states, including Illinois, New York, and California. Examining the Serrano case in California, the authors contend that an important inconsistency in the court requirements resulted from the apparent failure of both the courts and the legislatures to specify the logical relationships between several competing concepts of equality. To this end, Friedman and Wiseman provide a logical analysis of several concepts needed to measure the fair distribution of school revenues and resources. Using Illinois as a case study, they then construct empirical tests for each of those concepts both before and after the Hoffman-Fawell reform in school financing. Those data, finally, are used to suggest an analytic framework that can be employed for evaluating and perhaps predicting the impact of school-finance reforms on a wide range of state systems.

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Does School Finance Reform Reduce the Race Gap in School Funding?

Education Finance and Policy ◽

10.1162/edfp_a_00282 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 675-707

Author(s):

Michah W. Rothbart

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

School Districts ◽

School Finance ◽

Fixed Effects ◽

New York State ◽

School Funding ◽

Racial Composition ◽

Finance Reform ◽

School Finance Litigation ◽

The Impact

This paper offers new evidence on the impacts of school finance reforms (SFRs) precipitated by school finance litigation, exploring the extent to which the impact of SFR differs by district racial composition. Using difference-in-differences and event study models with a series of district and year (or state-by-year) fixed effects, and a sixteen-year panel of over 10,000 school districts, my analyses exploit variation in funding across school districts, and timing of school finance court orders across states, to estimate the effect of SFR on the distribution of district funding by racial composition. Models include relevant control variables available in national data and results are robust to numerous alternative specifications, including estimating impacts on percent changes in resources (in addition to levels), restricting analyses to districts in SFR states, controlling for additional covariates available in only some years and some states, and adding controls for state-specific time trends. In addition, I estimate changes in New York State to assess whether and to what extent results are sensitive to additional controls for revenue-raising capacity and district costs. Results suggest that SFR can work to alleviate racial funding gaps, though impacts are moderate.

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