Session Information
23 SES 06 D, Methodological Issues in the Analysis of Education Policy
Paper Session
Contribution
From 2010 to the present, the state of Michigan (USA) has adopted the Common Core curriculum, and has a pursued a course of education reform as has most states in the country. Michigan’s educational reform also instituted a modified teacher tenure law in 2011, and has gradually phased in its professional evaluation system in 2014 and 2015 known as the Educator Effectiveness program. These reform policy initiatives have raised curricular expectations with no policy change in additional financial state support. Studies reveal that local Michigan school communities are still responding to budgetary constraints caused by sharp declines in state and federal support during the Great Recession of 2008 and in response to the massive restructuring of the manufacturing and automotive industry. Subsequently, unemployment in Michigan has climbed and has caused budgetary instability in Detroit and other Michigan communities. Based on a memo from a number of school superintendents to the Michigan state legislature, 51 Michigan public schools operate at deficit spending levels and an additional 171 public schools have received early warning status of not having a fund balance less than five percent, resulting in significant reduction of school services and in inevitable school closings. Given this inverse relationship between higher curricular expectations and lower state support, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder decided in early October 2015 to recruit the consulting firm of Augenblick, Palaich and Associates located in Denver, Colorado to conduct an adequacy study concerning Michigan’s ability to support its school reform program. (Adequacy is defined as a level of resource sufficiency that supports expected student performance outcomes. However, adequacy approaches vary due to diverging assumptions that define adequacy.)
Meanwhile, this study seeks to analyze equity to determine if actual school spending reflects the equalization intentions of the state’s operating aid formula, featuring a foundation program for inter-district equalization and various categorical grants for need equalization. More specifically, this exploratory study will utilize descriptive statistical techniques plus multiple-regression, and analyze the equity patterns of Michigan school funding from 1992 to 2014. Equity is defined as a measure of fairness in two concepts: horizontal equity and vertical equity. Horizontal equity measures the variation of spending among school districts and also how varied this spending is from the state expectation. Vertical equity measures answers the extent for which spending is deliberately allocated at different amounts to meet the variation or differences of needs that students have.
Given the context of this proposed study, its research questions are:
1. Can the methodological approach of horizontal equity measures in previous studies be improved to include a vertical equity analysis in order to advance the equity analysis of Michigan’s school spending and possibly disclose other spending inadequacies?
2. Will an analysis of spending data from 1992 to 2014 reveal findings of reduced school spending disparity?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Baker, B. (September 2014). Evaluating the recession’s impact on state school finance systems, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(91), 1-30. Retrieved from: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1721/1357 Baker, B, Green, P, & Richards, C (2008). Financing education systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill-Prentice Hall, Inc. Berne, R. & Stiefel, L. (1984). The measurement of equity in school finance: Conceptual, methodological and empirical dimension. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Coons. J, Clune, W, & Sugarman, S. (1970). Private wealth and public education. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Cooper, B. & Speakman, S. (1997). The three R’s of education-finance reform: Rethinking, retooling, & re-evaluating school-site information, Journal of Education Finance, 22(4), pp. 337-367. Michigan Department of Education (2015). Bulletin 1014 – Michigan schools ranked by select financial information. Retrieved from: http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140--21514--,00.html Michigan Department of Education (2015). Public school finance information. Retrieved from: http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-5235_6539-21653--,00.html National Center for Education Statistics, Common core data: State fiscal reports. Retrieved from: http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pub_rev_exp.asp National Center for Education Statistics, Appendix B: Common core of data glossary. Retrieved from: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/expenditures/appendix_b.asp Odden, A. & Picus, L. (2008). School finance: A policy perspective, 4 edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
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