This article estimates the costs of school finance adequacy in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. by applying the recommendations from an evidence-based model to the student characteristics of each individual state. Using two different prices, (a) the national average teacher salaries adjusted by a comparable wage index and (b) individual state teacher salaries, the authors estimate per pupil costs of adequacy. Results suggest that in 30 states additional resources are needed to reach the funding level for the evidence-based model. The findings do not make adjustments for diseconomies resulting from large numbers of small schools or districts or other state preferences for educational services that could lead to individual state variations from the authors' findings.
We examine how district administrators' conceptions of equity relate to the implementation of finance reform. We use sensemaking theory and four views of equity-libertarian, liberal, democratic liberal, and transformative-to guide a case study of two districts, finding evidence of two conceptions of equity: (1) greater resources for students with greater needs and (2) equal distribution of resources for all students. One district demonstrated an organization-wide belief in the first conception, whereas the other conveyed individual-level understandings of both conceptions. These beliefs were mirrored in resource allocation decisions and informed by districts' student demographics, organizational identities, and perceptions of adequacy.Although state and federal policies have made progress toward goals of equity and adequacy in K-12 education (Odden and Picus 2014), students from traditionally marginalized backgrounds continue to have limited access to
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.