Education Finance

Education finance concerns the distribution and use of money for the purpose of providing educational services and producing student achievement. For most of the 20th century, education finance policy focused on equity, or issues related to the widely varying education expenditures per pupil across districts within a state, caused by the uneven distribution of the property tax base used to raise local education dollars. In the 1990s, new attention began to focus on education adequacy and productivity—or the relationship of student achievement to the level of funds and how those funds are used. As the 1990s ended and the 21st century began, policymakers increasingly wanted to know how much money was needed to educate students to high standards; how those dollars should be distributed effectively ...