abstract: ABSTRACT In Roosevelt v. Bishop (1994), Arizona public school districts and parents challenged Arizona's school financing system arguing that it was not "general and uniform" as required by the Arizona Constitution. The purpose of this study was to analyze Arizona's Students Fair and Immediate Resources for Students Today (Students FIRST) legislation, the remedy that resulted from the Roosevelt decision, empirically, and longitudinally. Three types of statistical analyses were conducted on a sample of 165 public school districts. Fiscal neutrality was measured for each of the eleven years of the study, to assess the association between the per-pupil Students FIRST funding level and the per-pupil property wealth. Multiple regression analysis was also conducted to assess if both property wealth and district size were associated with the distribution of Students FIRST funding. Finally, I analyzed the eleven-year average of the total Students FIRST funding distributed to school districts and assessed how the plaintiff districts ranked in the distribution. Overall, the findings revealed that Students FIRST met the fiscal neutrality standard in some, but not in all the categories and years of this study, per-pupil property wealth was only weakly related to, and district size was not associated with, Students FIRST funding. The analysis of average funding suggested that some property rich school districts benefited most from Students FIRST. These results suggest that the traditional measures used to assess the fiscal neutrality of operating funding may not be appropriate for assessing the fiscal neutrality of capital finance reforms. While the results of this study provide some suggestive evidence that Students FIRST did not fulfill the Court's mandate, additional research is needed as to whether or not Arizona's capital finance system has resulted in disparities in funding that fall short of the constitutional standard. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

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The purpose of this study was to determine the differences between selected state capital maintenance models and the model used in Tennessee. Research questions addressed the differences between the other selected models and the Tennessee model; the quantitative results of the models using data collected from the 14 Tennessee public two-year colleges, and the policy issue differences of the selected models. Research involved gathering information for each specific selected model including common factors used to calculate capital maintenance needs. Comparisons were made of the major components of each model. Actual data from the 14 Tennessee public two-year colleges was incorporated into each model. The quantitative results were then compared. Research also revealed policy issue differences between the selected models. These differences were examined. Results of this study included suggestions for enhancements to the Tennessee model which would provide more equitable funding of capital maintenance needs for each institution. Other suggestions and conclusions included the development of specific training and guidelines for the proper completion of model calculations. It was also suggested that an awareness campaign be initiated to strengthen the funding authority's commitment to the capital maintenance problem.

The purpose of this study was to obtain and analyze information about the perceptions of local school board chairpersons in Tennessee toward school accountability. A questionnaire was designed to gather information from all school board chairpersons in the state of Tennessee. The questionnaire contained 32 attitudinal statements related to school accountability and 11 demographic questions about the chairpersons and the system they represent. The mean score, frequency, and percentage of the responses were computed and analyzed. The Kruskal-Wallis one-was ANOVA was computed to determine if significant differences existed in the mean score of the 32 attitudinal statements based on the 9 demographics which contained more than two subgroups. When only two subgroups were available in the demographics, or the Kruskal-Wallis identified that a significant difference did exist among the subgroups, the Mann-Whitney U - Wilcoxon Rank Sum W Test were computed. The Mann-Whitney U Test identified the differences and pinpointed the subgroups that did have significant differences. Findings derived from school board chairpersons' responses to the questionnaire: (1) Parents are responsible (99.1%) for getting children to attend school. (2) Schools should be equally funded (98.2%) before a school accountability program is implemented. (3) More research on value-added testing needs to be completed before teachers and principals are held accountable by test results. (4) Programs to improve attendance (86.7%) and graduation rates (85.7%) need to be implemented for all school systems. (5) School board chairpersons need more education concerning site-based management and how it relates to accountability.

The purpose of this study was to identify issues that are considered important to the legislators and higher education leaders of Tennessee in making decisions that affect the funding of higher education. A further purpose was to identify actions that such individuals believe should be taken by higher education leaders to ensure that higher education is accountable and worthy of continued or increased financial support. Using a qualitative research design, interviews were held with 10 legislators and 6 higher education leaders selected in accordance with the concept of purposeful sampling. Legislative participants included five members from the Senate and five members from the House of Representatives. All participants served on either the Education Committee or Finance Ways and Means Committee within their chamber. Higher education leaders consisted of a university president, the President of the University of Tennessee System, Chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, Executive Director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, Comptroller of the Treasury, and a member of the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees. Issues identified from the interviews were reduced to eight categories: (a) issues affecting higher education and (b) findings regarding the accountability of higher education. The issues category was divided into eight categories: (a) financial issues that was further subdivided into funding issues, accountability issues, capital expenditures, taxes, fees, and other general financial issues; (b) administrative structure and costs; (c) quality outcomes; (d) faculty issues; (e) technology; (f) program duplication; (g) relationship to K-12 education; and (h) other general issues. Issues that emerged related to accountability included the measurement of educational outcomes and the communication of those results to legislators and the public. Based on the findings of this study, three recommendations are offered: (1) a committee consisting of appropriate representatives should be established to study the issue of accountability and determine appropriate measurements that will provide relevant information; (2) leaders in higher education should make a concerted effort to improve communication with legislators and their staffs; and (3) those in higher education must improve their communication with the public.

In an era of rapid charter school growth, this study sought to examine rational decision making for special populations in Texas urban charter schools. To investigate differences among charters, I categorized the schools into three groups: network corporate charters, community corporate charters, and intergovernmental charters. Quantitative analysis, including the use of ANOVAs and Tukeys, helped identify differences in expenditures among the three charter groups. Intergovernmental charters focused their spending on teachers and student programs, including programs for students with disabilities and ESL and bilingual programs. Community corporate charters spent less in most categories, except, in the majority of years, for social work, food services, cocurricular activities, and data processing. Network charters channeled their funding into areas such as school leadership, facilities, security and monitoring, and accelerated education. I then used qualitative analysis to understand how charter school administrators decide to spend their money in a way that is most cost-effective for their operations relative to their student populations. I completed 20 interviews with charter school administrators in four Texas cities. Administrators in charters were aware of the competitive accountability and fiscal environment in which they were running their schools. This resulted in cost-effective rational decision making. Charter administrators were also under significant financial stress and did not believe that their schools were adequately funded, though some charters still sought to make a profit or increase their net assets. To make up the difference in funding, some charters have relied on grants and donations from other corporations. Administrators also discussed special populations of students, such as ESL/bilingual students and students with disabilities. / text

The study examined school district expenditures in Texas and their correlations with student achievement. The following research question guided this study: Which resource allocations produce statistically significant correlations between the resource allocation variances among school district and student achievement? An ordinal logistic regression analysis included 1009 school districts in the State of Texas, 18 of 26 possible finance function codes provided per-pupil dollar amounts, and 9 of 11 possible demographic categories were utilized for the study. The study held the school district as the unit of analysis. The statistical model was used to regress the dollar amounts categorized by financial function codes and percent student demographics to determine if a relationship existed with the dependent variable of the Texas Education Agency’s defined accountability rating during the 5-year time period—2004-2008. At the national level, there is a long-standing debate over whether the amount of money allocated to education affects student achievement. The literature review presents two sides of the debate concerning whether financial resources make a difference with regard to student achievement as represented through district-level accountability ratings. The research revealed that specific school district resource allocations by function code are statistically significant with regard to district level accountability measures through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) accountability system. However, the odds ratios temper the impact of the significance. The research also revealed that demographics are statistically significant in the State of Texas accountability system. / text

The current economic conditions in the United States have contributed to budgetary cuts to public education at both the federal and state levels. This attention to educational funding and political decisions regarding spending are linked to beliefs about what is valued in education and what proper policy solutions exist. Yet, contemporary actions and issues do not exist in isolation. These economic difficulties are situated in a specific context, history, and have been shaped by political ideologies. This dissertation is directly focused on critically examining the history and context of school finance policy. School finance policy has been an important political issue for over 40 years, beginning with the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez case (Koski & Levin, 2000). This case was first filed in 1968 and serves as the unit of analysis for this study. While much of the body of work regarding school finance is framed according to traditional economic methods and beliefs, this study is a historic narrative that utilizes critical policy analysis to examine educational funding. Though Rodriguez was a case filed by Mexican American parents on behalf of students in the Edgewood school district, which served a student population that was over 90% Latino, Mexican Americans and the voices of Mexican Americans were glaringly absent from the arguments made in court. This absence of race marks a need for critical policy analysis and work that calls attention to this silent area of political discourse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the inclusion and exclusion of race in the Rodriguez case to find out what is missing from the dominant narratives of school finance and begin to understand how current policies continue to ignore race. Historic methods, guided by a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) framework, are employed to analyze archival records, newspaper articles, legal documents, and oral histories. Narratives reveal themes of the social context that lead to legal action, the language used in the courts cases, and the lasting implications for continued understandings of school finance policy. / text

The purpose of this study was to identify high performing school districts in Texas and to determine if there are different characteristics leading to the provision of an adequate education in high performing districts as compared to low performing districts. It specifically sought to determine which characteristics contributed most to an adequate education and used data from the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) which chronicled scores on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). The population for this study consisted of all 2001-2002 Texas public school districts with the exception of charter schools, special-purpose statutory districts, and state-administered districts, which resulted in using data from 1027 Texas school districts. Descriptive discriminant analysis was chosen as the method for statistical analysis. Data were obtained from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Adequate and inadequate districts were analyzed according to eight variables. They were (1) taxable value per pupil, (2) the percentage of special education students, (3) the percentage of students coded as bilingual and ESL, (4) pupil-teacher ratio, (5) the size of the district, (6) the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in the district, (7) the district community type, such as rural or suburban, and (8) the total operating expenditures per pupil. Two analyses were conducted. The first analysis sought to determine the different characteristics between adequate districts (districts that scored 80% or above on the TAAS test) and inadequate districts (districts that scored 79% or below on the TAAS test). In order to determine these differences with a higher standard for adequacy, a second analysis was performed. The second analysis focused on districts deemed adequate by scoring 90% or above on the TAAS test compared to those districts deemed inadequate by scoring 69% and below. The eight variables accounted for 21% and 37% of the variance between groups respectively. For both analyses performed, the three variables that clearly contributed most to predicting membership in the two groups were the percentage of economically disadvantaged students( .935, .652), the percent of students in bilingual or ESL programs (.332, .371), and the taxable values per pupil (.178, .058). The percentage of economically disadvantaged students indicated that this variable explained 94% and 65% of the overall effect sizes. The percentage of bilingual and ESL students explained 33% and 37% of the effect size. Taxable Value per pupil explained 17% and 6% of the effect size. The percentage of special education students, total operating expenditures per pupil, the student-teacher ratio, community type, and the size of the district each, revealed only slight contribution to group differences. These results clearly suggested that the inadequate districts had higher percentages of economically disadvantaged students and ESL students while the adequate districts had higher taxable value per pupil, or wealth.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the twelve-year system in Texas is democratic and sound from the standpoint of finance, biological basis, and psychology. This problem originated through the adoption of the twelve-grade system for Texas schools by the State Department of Education. The administrator is desirous to choose and to organize the plan most profitable for the child. From this study it is hoped that an adequate educational program can be established.