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Public School Finance and its Effect on the Quality of Education

Thesis advisor: Richard A. McGowan / This paper examines the discrepancies in the finance of public education across the United States in order to determine how particular funding schemes affect the quality and efficiency of education. Local governments have been the principal provider of funds for education in the past, but debate over equitable schooling for all students has led to several changes in the structure of education finance. In order to construct an encompassing measure of educational quality, a model based on Morgan and Morgan (2006) is used to assign each state a quality rating. Regression analysis helps establish the effect of various monetary variables on educational quality. There are clear patterns in the data which suggest that both the total amount of funds provided and the proportion of funds provided by each level of the government influence the quality of education. In addition, personal income and the percent of the population living below the poverty line prove to be key determinants of educational quality. It is my hope that this paper contributes to the work on the finance of public education and the work that aims to improve the quality of education in the United States. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_102156
Date January 2008
CreatorsCorrigan, Bret
PublisherBoston College
Source SetsBoston College
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, thesis
Formatelectronic, application/pdf
RightsCopyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.

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