Helen F. Ladd - Böcker

We spend a lot of time arguing about how schools might be improved. But we rarely take a step back to ask what we as a society should be looking for from education what exactly should those who make decisions be trying to achieve? In Educational Goods, two philosophers and two social scientists address this very question. They begin by broadening the language for talking about educational policy: "educational goods" are the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that children develop for their own benefit and that of others; "childhood goods" are the valuable experiences and freedoms that make childhood a distinct phase of life. Balancing those, and understanding that not all of them can be measured through traditional methods, is a key first step. From there, they show how to think clearly about how those goods are distributed and propose a method for combining values and evidence to reach decisions. They conclude by showing the method in action, offering detailed accounts of how it might be applied in school finance, accountability, and choice.The result is a reimagining of our decision making about schools, one that will sharpen our thinking on familiar debates and push us toward better outcomes.

We spend a lot of time arguing about how schools might be improved. But we rarely take a step back to ask what we as a society should be looking for from education what exactly should those who make decisions be trying to achieve? In Educational Goods, two philosophers and two social scientists address this very question. They begin by broadening the language for talking about educational policy: "educational goods" are the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that children develop for their own benefit and that of others; "childhood goods" are the valuable experiences and freedoms that make childhood a distinct phase of life. Balancing those, and understanding that not all of them can be measured through traditional methods, is a key first step. From there, they show how to think clearly about how those goods are distributed and propose a method for combining values and evidence to reach decisions. They conclude by showing the method in action, offering detailed accounts of how it might be applied in school finance, accountability, and choice.The result is a reimagining of our decision making about schools, one that will sharpen our thinking on familiar debates and push us toward better outcomes.

The United States annually spends over $300 billion on public elementary and secondary education. As the nation enters the 21st century, it faces a major challenge: how best to tie this financial investment to the goal of high levels of achievement for all students. In addition, policymakers want assurance that education dollars are being raised and used in the most efficient and effective possible ways. The book covers such topics as: * Legal and legislative efforts to reduce spending and achievement gaps. * The shift from "equity" to "adequacy" as a new standard for determining fairness in education spending. * The debate and the evidence over the productivity of American schools. * Strategies for using school finance in support of broader reforms aimed at raising student achievement. This book contains a comprehensive review of the theory and practice of financing public schools by federal, state, and local governments in the United States. It distills the best available knowledge about the fairness and productivity of expenditures on education and assesses options for changing the finance system.

Spending on K-12 education across the United States and across local school districts has long been characterized by great disparities--disparities that reflect differences in property wealth and tax rates. For more than a quarter-century, reformers have attempted to reduce these differences through court challenges and legislative action. As part of a broad study of education finance, the committee commissioned eight papers examining the history and consequences of school finance reform undertaken in the name of equity and adequacy. This thought-provoking, timely collection of papers explores such topics as: * What do the terms "equity" and "adequacy" in school finance really mean? * How are these terms relevant to the politics and litigation of school finance reform? * What is the impact of court-ordered school finance reform on spending disparities? * How do school districts use money from finance reform? * What policy options are available to states facing new challenges from court decisions mandating adequacy in school finance? * When measuring adequacy, how do you consider differences in student needs and regional costs?

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the second edition of this groundbreaking handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, with particular attention to elementary and secondary education. Chapters from the first edition have been fully updated and revised to reflect current developments, new policies, and recent research. With new chapters on teacher evaluation, alternatives to traditional public schooling, and cost-benefit analysis, this volume provides a readily available current resource for anyone involved in education finance and policy.The Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and revenue sources used to finance these inputs, to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. Chapters show how decision making in school finance inevitably interacts with decisions about governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of important contemporary issues requires inputs from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a number of disciplines. Although many of the chapters cover complex, state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand. This comprehensive, balanced, and accessible resource provides a wealth of factual information, data, and wisdom to help educators improve the quality of education in the United States.

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the second edition of this groundbreaking handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, with particular attention to elementary and secondary education. Chapters from the first edition have been fully updated and revised to reflect current developments, new policies, and recent research. With new chapters on teacher evaluation, alternatives to traditional public schooling, and cost-benefit analysis, this volume provides a readily available current resource for anyone involved in education finance and policy.The Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and revenue sources used to finance these inputs, to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. Chapters show how decision making in school finance inevitably interacts with decisions about governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of important contemporary issues requires inputs from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a number of disciplines. Although many of the chapters cover complex, state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand. This comprehensive, balanced, and accessible resource provides a wealth of factual information, data, and wisdom to help educators improve the quality of education in the United States.

In the past two decades powerful economic, social, and fiscal forces have buffeted America's major cities. The urbanization of poverty, the shift in employment from manufacturing to services, middle-class flight to the suburbs and Sunbelt, the tax revolt, and cuts in federal aid have made it difficult for many cities to pay for such basic services as police and fire protection, sanitation, and roads. In "America's Ailing Cities" Helen F. Ladd and John Yinger identify and measure the impact of these broad national trends. Drawing on data from 86 major cities, they offer a rigorous and innovative analysis of urban fiscal conditions. Specifically, they determine the impact of a wide range of factors that lie outside municipal control, including a city's basic economic structure and state-determined fiscal institutions, on a city's underlying fiscal health-- the difference between potential revenue and the expenditure needed to finance public services of acceptable quality. Concluding that the fiscal health of America's cities has worsened since 1972, the authors call for new state and federal urban policies that direct assistance to the neediest cities.

In 1989 New Zealand embarked on what is arguably the most thorough and dramatic transformation of a compulsory state education system ever undertaken by an industrialized country. Under a plan known as Tomorrow's Schools this island nation of 3.8 million people abolished its national Department of Education and turned control of its nearly 2,700 primary and secondary schools over to locally elected boards of trustees. Virtually overnight, one of the world's most tightly controlled public education systems became one of the most decentralized. Two years later, in 1991, with a new government in power, New Zealand enacted further reforms that introduced full parental choice of schools and encouraged the development of a competitive culture in the state education system. Debate rages in the United States about whether similar reforms would improve the performance of the country's troubled public school system. Judgments about the potential benefits of these ideas, as well as the general relevance of economic models to educational systems, tap into deeply held values, and discussion in the U.S. has been hampered by the lack of practical experience with them. The extended and widespread experiences of New Zealand, whose school system functions much like our own, provide U.S. policy makers with a wide range of appropriate insights and implications to consider as they gauge the merits of bold education reform. When Schools Compete is the first book to provide detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the New Zealand experiment. Combining the perceptive observations of a prominent education journalist and the analytical skills of an academic policy analyst, this book will help supporters and critics of market-based education reforms better anticipate the potential long-term consequences of applying ideas of market competition to the delivery of education.

Elusive Equity chronicles South Africa's efforts to fashion a racially equitable state education system from the ashes of apartheid. The policymakers who came to power with Nelson Mandela in 1994 inherited and education system designed to further the racist goals of apartheid. Their massive challenge was to transform that system, which lavished human and financial resources on schools serving white students while systematically starving those serving African, coloured, and Indian learners, into one that would offer quality education to all persons, regardless of their race.Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd describe and evaluate the strategies that South Africa pursued in its quest for racial equity. They draw on previously unpublished data, interviews with key officials, and visits to dozens of schools to describe the changes made in school finance, teacher assignment policies, governance, curriculum, higher education, and other areas. They conclude that the country has made remarkable progress toward equity in the sense of equal treatment of persons of all races. For several reasons, however, the country has been far less successful in promoting equal educational opportunity or educational adequacy. Thus equity has remained elusive.The book is unique in combining the perceptive observations of a skilled education journalist with the analytical skills of an academic policy expert. Richly textured descriptions of how South Africa's education reforms have affected schools at the grass-roots level are combined with careful analysis of enrollment, governance, and budget data at the school, provincial, and national levels. The result is a compelling and comprehensive study of South Africa's first decade of education reform in the post-apartheid period.