Book Description

This report examines variations between school districts and across the states in the quantities of the various types of revenues received for educational programs and services. It builds on some of the analysis techniques introduced in an earlier National Center for Education Statistics publication, "Disparities in Public School Spending" (1995). While that report focused primarily on public school expenditures for the 1989-90 school year, this report provides detailed information about how much money is received through alternative funding sources at the federal, state, and local levels for different types of students, districts, and communities for the 1991-92 school year. Many of these funding sources are categorical in nature, that is, generated for specific reasons or designated for specific purposes. The revenue measures are matched to important school district characteristics such as the percentage of children in poverty, the percentage of minority children, and wealth. Data come from the 1992 Survey of Local Government Finances and other databases. The lowest poverty and lowest percent minority districts have substantially more actual general education revenues than their higher poverty and percent minority counterparts, but the opposite is true for categorical revenues. For Chapter 1 (renamed Title 1 in the 1994 reauthorization), revenues per target student are greatest in the lowest, as well as the highest, poverty districts. Comparable results are found for state counterparts. Overall, findings from this report illustrate the relative importance of concerns related to interstate, as well as intrastate, equity from the perspective of the child. Children in low equity, but high revenue states, such as New York and Vermont, appear to be much better off in terms of the quantities of educational services received than those in highly equitable, but relatively low revenue states like Kentucky. Implications are discussed. Five appendixes provide supplemental information for variables of interest, technical notes, and definitions of key terms. (Contains 41 figures, 73 tables, and 41 references.) (SLD)