IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6766.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

School Finance Reform, the Distribution of School Spending, and the Distribution of SAT Scores

Author

Listed:
  • David Card
  • A. Abigail Payne

Abstract

In this paper we study the effects of school finance reforms on the distribution of school spending across richer and poorer districts, and the effects of spending equalization on the distribution of student outcomes across children from different family backgrounds. We use school district data from the 1977 and 1992 Censuses of Governments to measure the correlation between state funding per pupil and median family income in each district. We find that states where the school finance system was declared unconstitutional in the 1980s increased the relative funding of low-income districts. Increases in state funds available to poorer districts led to increases in the relative spending of these districts, and to some equalization in spending across richer and poorer districts. We then use micro samples of SAT scores from this same period to measure the effects of spending inequality on the inequality in test scores between children from different family backgrounds. We find some evidence that the equalization of spending across districts leads to a narrowing of test score outcomes across family background groups.

Suggested Citation

  • David Card & A. Abigail Payne, 1998. "School Finance Reform, the Distribution of School Spending, and the Distribution of SAT Scores," NBER Working Papers 6766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6766
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6766.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-296, June.
    2. Dynarski, Mark, 1987. "The Scholastic Aptitude Test: Participation and performance," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 263-273, June.
    3. T. A. Downes & D. N. Figlio, "undated". "School Finance Reforms, Tax Limits, and Student Performance: Do Reforms Level Up or Dumb Down?," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1142-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    4. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1996. "School Resources and Student Outcomes: An Overview of the Literature and New Evidence from North and South Carolina," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 31-50, Fall.
    5. Gronau, Reuben, 1974. "Wage Comparisons-A Selectivity Bias," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1119-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    6. Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 1987. "The economics of the local public sector," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 11, pages 571-645, Elsevier.
    7. Fisher, Ronald C., 1982. "Income and grant effects on local expenditure: The flypaper effect and other difficulties," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 324-345, November.
    8. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2001. "All School Finance Equalizations are Not Created Equal," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1189-1231.
    9. Behrendt, Amy & Eisenach, Jeffrey & Johnson, William R., 1986. "Selectivity bias and the determinants of SAT scores," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 363-371, August.
    10. Murray, Sheila E & Evans, William N & Schwab, Robert M, 1998. "Education-Finance Reform and the Distribution of Education Resources," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 789-812, September.
    11. Figlio, David N., 1997. "Did the "tax revolt" reduce school performance?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 245-269, September.
    12. repec:fth:prinin:366 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Goldstein, G. S. & Pauly, M. V., 1981. "Tiebout bias on the demand for local public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 131-143, October.
    14. William N. Evans & Sheila E. Murray & Robert M. Schwab, 1997. "Schoolhouses, courthouses, and statehouses after Serrano," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 10-31.
    15. Manwaring, R.L. & Sheffrin, S.M., 1994. "The Effects of Education Equalization Litigation on the Levels of Funding: An Empirical Analysis," Papers 94-14, California Davis - Institute of Governmental Affairs.
    16. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-1177, September.
    17. David Card & Alan Krueger, 1996. "School Resources and Student Outcomes: An Overview of the Literature and New Evidence from North and South Carolina," Working Papers 745, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    18. Ahn, Hyungtaik & Powell, James L., 1993. "Semiparametric estimation of censored selection models with a nonparametric selection mechanism," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-29, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Card, David & Payne, A. Abigail, 2002. "School finance reform, the distribution of school spending, and the distribution of student test scores," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 49-82, January.
    2. Eric J. Brunner & Jon Sonstelie, 2006. "California's School Finance Reform: An Experiment in Fiscal Federalism," Working papers 2006-09, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    3. T. A. Downes & D. N. Figlio, "undated". "School Finance Reforms, Tax Limits, and Student Performance: Do Reforms Level Up or Dumb Down?," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1142-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    4. Thomas A. Downes, 2002. "Do state governments matter?: a review of the evidence on the impact on educational outcomes of the changing role of the states in the financing of public education," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 47(Jun), pages 143-180.
    5. Chaudhary, Latika, 2009. "Education inputs, student performance and school finance reform in Michigan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 90-98, February.
    6. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    7. Sims, David P., 2011. "Suing for your supper? Resource allocation, teacher compensation and finance lawsuits," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1034-1044, October.
    8. Kreisman, Daniel & Steinberg, Matthew P., 2019. "The effect of increased funding on student achievement: Evidence from Texas's small district adjustment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 118-141.
    9. Cécile Bonneau, 2020. "The Concentration of investment in education in the US (1970-2018)," Working Papers halshs-02875965, HAL.
    10. Daniel E. Ingberman & Robert P. Inman, 1987. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 2405, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Fernández, Raquel, 2001. "Sorting, Education and Inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 3020, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Card, David & Rothstein, Jesse, 2007. "Racial segregation and the black-white test score gap," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2158-2184, December.
    13. Lisa Barrow & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2000. "Using Market Valuation to Assess the Importance and Efficiency of Public School Spending," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1446, Econometric Society.
    14. repec:pri:cepsud:109rothstein is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Raquel Fernandez, 2001. "Sorting, Education and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 8101, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Aaronson, Daniel, 1999. "The Effect of School Finance Reform on Population Heterogeneity," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(1), pages 5-29, March.
    17. Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Fernando Ferreira & Jesse Rothstein, 2008. "The Value of School Facilities: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design," NBER Working Papers 14516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Card, David & Rothstein, Jesse, 2007. "Racial segregation and the black-white test score gap," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2158-2184, December.
    19. repec:pri:cepsud:180rothstein is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Cécile Bonneau, 2020. "The Concentration of investment in education in the US (1970-2018)," World Inequality Lab Working Papers halshs-02875965, HAL.
    21. Stephanie Riegg Cellini & Fernando Ferreira & Jesse Rothstein, 2008. "The Value of School Facilities: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design," NBER Working Papers 14516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Thomas Downes, 2003. "School Finance Reform and School Quality: Lessons from Vermont," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0309, Department of Economics, Tufts University.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6766. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.