School Finance Its Economics and Politics Term Paper

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School Finance: Its Economics and Politics

School financing in America

Revenue sources for federal and state governments

Judicial reviews of school finance policy with evolving standards of equality

School-based decision making

Family choice of schooling

Reform of schooling-finance

Providing equality in educational opportunities to all is one of the cornerstones of American democracy. The founding fathers of America were aware of the necessity of having a population, which is educated since it enables an opportunity for all the citizens of the country to be successful. The necessity and the desire to create an environment where all children have equal opportunities for education to achieve success are now creating fundamental challenges in the field of education in America. In the 20th century, the issues which concerned school finance was about dealing with how to overcome fiscal disparities with the use of state and federal resources within a public school system. The public school system in the initial stages heavily depended on local funding. In the 21st century the issue concerning school finance system is how to improve the learning for all students, which is the fundamental purpose of education. How the performance of schools is affected as a result of the funding policies and practices is a very recent development. But this development has become a central important issue in the decision-making of school finance. Whatever be the issue in a debate, whether it is the role of federal government in education, revolt of the taxpayers, a lack of necessary infrastructure or increasing diversity the underlying problem is the same. It is about the issue of how to fund schools equitably and in an adequate manner. The paper has been divided into sub-sections dealing with several aspects of financing of education in America. (Kern;Richard, 1995)

School Financing in America:

In America policy makers have raised concern and educators as to find ways of making all its future citizens function in an effective manner, since the future society hold situations of highly complex and globally interconnected issues. As a result the solution is to provide schoolchildren with the requisite knowledge and skills that they would need to function effectively as future citizens. And policy makers and educators are constantly searching methods. An important factor of this quest involves school finance. It involves

Alexander, Kern, & Salmon, Richard, G. Public school finance. Mass.: Allyn and Bacon. (1995) an understanding of the decisions about how effectively the amount spend by the country on public elementary and secondary education annually can be most effectively be used and the funds required be raised. The state governments in America provide a school funding ranging from 30 to 100%. Presently the educational finance system in America deals with providing of responsibility to the local level. This includes that the funding responsibilities is based on an average division of roughly between state and local governments. In America there are wide variations in the funding done for education and the level of government that provides these funds.

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It is the state governments that spend the most on education. This is because education is considered as a duty, which is assigned to the states, since it is not mentioned in the federal Constitution. As a result the responsibility of educational funding falls upon the states. (Linda; Busch; Odden, 1994)

An important challenge for policy makers depend on promoting and increasing achievement for all students. They are concerned with how to make the education finance system to be in tune with this motive.

This is an important challenge since it deals with the idea of connecting finance to the purposes of education in direct terms. The American education system is being complicated by deeply rooted values about education, which have their differences. They are also complicated by the role of individuals and governments in a democratic society and by the role of parents in guiding the development of their children. Along with this there are severe shortcomings in Hertert, Linda, Carolyn Busch, and Allan Odden. "School Financing Inequities Among the States: The Problem from a National Perspective." Journal of Education Finance 19 (Winter 1994), 231-255.

A knowledge about dealing with improving learning for all students. Since the educational policy cannot ignore these understandings, what is needed is to balance difference in the values by means of thoughtful and well-informed knowledge. At the same time it is also essential to have a systematic, bold, and rigorous inquiry in order to have an improvement in the understanding in achieving educational goals in order to give more importance to the matter of making money. (Ladd, Hansen, 1999)

The methods of promoting fairness and equality must be carried forward in such a manner by analyzing the possible effects on the efficiency by way of which the funds are raised. In the last decade the method of fairness in terms of application to school finance has been having a new turn of events with several rounds of litigation and reform. The concept of fairness has shifted its focus from the distribution of educational inputs to which school finance systems should be held in order to give importance to making the idea of educational adequacy as the basis. In order to achieve educational adequacy by the efforts to use finance policies depends primarily on analyzing how to translate funds for the progress of students. The public and the policy makers would have to analyze about the strengths and weaknesses of the different strategies available for change. They also have to identify and weigh the difference in values how they want their schools to be National Research Council. "Making Money Matter: Financing America's Schools." Committee on Education Finance, Helen F. Ladd and Janet S. Hansen, eds. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. (1999) and what they want their schools to do. (Odden, Busch, 1998)

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