TY - JOUR
T1 - Making do
T2 - State constraints and local responses in California's education finance system
AU - Duncombe, William
AU - Yinger, John
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This paper is a revised version of Duncombe and Yinger (2006), a report prepared for the Getting Down to Facts project, which was directed by Susanna Loeb of Stanford University and funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and The Stuart Foundation. The views expressed in this paper should not be attributed to anyone except the authors. We are grateful to Julie Anna Golebiewski for excellent research assistance and helpful comments; to Eric Brunner, Jay Chambers, and Jennifer Imazeki for providing us with California data and advice on how to use it; to Susanna Loeb, Phuong Nguyen, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments; and to the participants in the Getting Down to Facts project meetings in June and November 2006 for their comments on our work and their helpful presentations on many aspects of the California education finance system.
PY - 2011/6
Y1 - 2011/6
N2 - California's unique education finance system combines general state support for school districts, numerous state categorical aid programs, a restricted local property tax, and two unusual small local revenue sources: a parcel tax and contributions from educational foundations. This paper explores the incentives this system creates for local voters and school officials and estimates the impact of these incentives on education costs, school district efficiency, and the demand for student performance. The paper finds that voters in California respond to the price incentives in this system even though they work through the hard-to-pass parcel tax instead of the property tax; that educational outcomes are strongly influenced by student characteristics and other factors that influence educational costs; that school district efficiency is undermined by the state's current emphasis on categorical instead of unrestricted aid; and that, overall, the education finance system is not well designed to meet the state's educational objectives.
AB - California's unique education finance system combines general state support for school districts, numerous state categorical aid programs, a restricted local property tax, and two unusual small local revenue sources: a parcel tax and contributions from educational foundations. This paper explores the incentives this system creates for local voters and school officials and estimates the impact of these incentives on education costs, school district efficiency, and the demand for student performance. The paper finds that voters in California respond to the price incentives in this system even though they work through the hard-to-pass parcel tax instead of the property tax; that educational outcomes are strongly influenced by student characteristics and other factors that influence educational costs; that school district efficiency is undermined by the state's current emphasis on categorical instead of unrestricted aid; and that, overall, the education finance system is not well designed to meet the state's educational objectives.
KW - Demand for education
KW - Educational costs
KW - School district efficiency
KW - State aid to education
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U2 - 10.1007/s10797-010-9159-3
DO - 10.1007/s10797-010-9159-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79955986960
VL - 18
SP - 337
EP - 368
JO - International Tax and Public Finance
JF - International Tax and Public Finance
SN - 0927-5940
IS - 3
ER -