Monday, April 22, 2013

Fatally Flawed Financing


This is a piece I wrote back in 2008. Enjoy!


Fatally Flawed Financing: An Analysis of National Education Financing and a Proposal for Reform



Introduction

The education system in America is, and has been, broken; the past 40 years of reform have not had a significant impact on the highly distorted educational outcomes of our public schools.  States have tried a wide range of financing policies, from the highly centralized to the minimally invasive, and all have not been able to overcome the entrenched educational discrimination that has existed for hundreds of years.  It is vital to our countries competitiveness, prosperity, and moral weight that we transform the educational system into one that is fully supportive of all children.  The only way, in addition to achieving economic justice[i], we can resuscitate the fatally flawed education system is to overturn the timid and anachronistic Supreme Court decision, San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, by passing a new Constitutional Amendment, and fully fund public education through the federal government.  This would mean establishing an efficient, equitable, and flexible education system that would eliminate the bulky, ineffective, insular, and overly bureaucratic system of local school boards, and disparate state standards, that is responsible, along with the larger economic system, for the destruction of countless dreams and the inhibition of national economic growth. 

Education in America’s Development


Education in America has been transforming to meet the demands of the economy and our evolving moral beliefs since the founding of our country.  In colonial times, individual families and localities provided for the education of their children because state governments did not play a direct role in the lives of many.  The federal government did not play a role in early American education because the Constitution does not mention, or allude to, education in the minimalist framework it establishes.  After the Civil War demonstrated the need for a larger federal role in order to form a more cohesive society, the Education Department was formed in 1867 to support state education.[ii]  States also began to gradually increase their share of education funding and by the Twentieth Century the local governments paid over 75%.  The Second World War and the Cold War propelled the federal government to increase spending on education and state funding rose as well.  The state share of education funding reached a fairly stable plateau at 40% throughout the 1950’s, 60’s and early 70’s.[iii]  The federal government began to respond to the outrage of racial and class disenfranchisement with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1965.  The later established Title I, a funding apparatus that assisted schools with limited local resources.  

Constitutional Quandaries


The early 1970’s produced 2 court cases that have had impacts upon all educational financing decisions since.  The most important and least referenced was a Federal Supreme Court case in 1973, San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez.  This 5-4 decision overturned a district court ruling that found the Texas education finance system in violation of the last sentence of the first clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  This sentence, which is so vital to the rights of our modern democracy, states “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;…; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”[iv]  The education financing systems in place in the 1970’s, as well as today, do not provide for the equal treatment of children, and are unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court found ways to overlook this. 

The majority opinion asserted that education was not a fundamental right, because it is not explicitly or implicitly protected by the Constitution.  Another reason they did not support ‘strict scrutiny’ was they found that the disproportionate financing of schools did not affect the ‘suspect classes’, groups traditionally discriminated against, and in this case the ‘poor’.  Therefore, they could not apply the 14th Amendment to this case.  They were wrong on both fronts.  However their real concerns, as articulated by Powell, lay with the resultant transformation of the federal government’s role in education if they found education a fundamental right.  “It would be difficult to imagine a case having a greater potential impact on our federal system than the one now before us, in which we are urged to abrogate systems of financing public education presently in existence in virtually every state.”  The demolition of the local and state education finance system is what is needed because of the vast inequities present in education finance developed from and are fostered by a fragmented system. 

Justice Thurgood Marshal wrote the dissent, unfortunately not the opinion of the court. 
He criticized the majority ruling “ …as unsupportable acquiescence in a system which deprives children in their earliest years of the chances to reach their full potential as citizens.”  He fully discloses the reality of Texan education funding, and their supporters, as well.
In my judgment, the right of every American to an equal start in life, so far as the provision of a state service as important as education is concerned, is far too vital to permit state discrimination on grounds as tenuous as those presented by this record. Nor can I accept the notion that it is sufficient to remit these appellees to the vagaries of the political process which, contrary to the majority's suggestion, has proved singularly unsuited to the task of providing a remedy for this discrimination. I, for one, am unsatisfied with the hope of an ultimate "political" solution sometime in the indefinite future while, in the meantime, countless children unjustifiably receive inferior educations that "may affect their hearts U.S. and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." Brown v. Board of Education[v]
It is difficult to quantify the harm that has been done to children, and the national economy, by the majority’s decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, but we do know that the struggle for high quality education for all public school children has been made more difficult as a result.  Since the federal government has stepped back from the debate, the battles turned to the states.  Progress has been made in reducing state discrimination in education finance, but it remains rampant across the country. 

The court case that signaled the beginning of the education equity litigation struggle was decided in California, in 1971.  Serrano v. Priest reached the legal conclusions, education is a fundamental right and wealth is a suspect class[vi], that Justice Thurgood Marshal did two years later.  This seemed to be the movement forward that children of impoverished districts needed, but the structure of the funding system remained largely unchanged and incentives imbedded in the decision resulted in a “taxpayer revolt, fiscal bankruptcy of the state government, and a steep decline of the education system”.[vii]   Per pupil education expenditures dropped 15% because wealthy districts resisted tax increases that would no longer solely fund their children.[viii]  When education financing depends upon a large percentage of property taxes with some degree of local control, quality equalized schools will not develop. 

National Reform Since 1971

The federal government’s reluctance to seriously address the vast discrepancies of education finance forced each state in the union to address this vital national interest by themselves.  In 2002, a meta-analysis of state’s individual litigation efforts found what Marshall expected.  “Most studies do not show a clear trend of improved equity”.[ix] Michigan was one state that improved equity statistics because they significantly reduced the role of property tax in 1993.  Ohio and Virginia’s educational equity worsened after reform.  Texas’ funding formula was still unconstitutional after 20 years in court, a 97% aid increase, and three legislative policy reforms.  Two years after New Jersey enacted a new formula, equity statistics worsened. 

However, some studies found favorable impacts of litigation, which included a rise in the total funds allocated to education. Sometimes states restructured their educational systems to increase “centralization and bureaucratic decision making, greater state control of school funding with less voter input, and more standardized and sanitized curricula with less flexibility for students and parents.” [x]  While rigid centralization has limitations, it can ensure high standards, streamline evaluation and, if actions are taken to dismantle highly localized districts, centralization reduces bureaucracy. 

Tennessee has experienced three waves of equitable school reform since the early 1990’s, but local districts have subverted legislative attempts to fulfill constitutional requirements.  There are two basic measures of educational equity, horizontal and vertical.  Schools are horizontally equitable when they “treat students with similar academic qualities in the same manner”, and they are vertically equitable when they treat “students with different sociodemographic characteristics in a different manner in order to give them equal opportunity”.[xi]  Through the decade of reform Tennessee was only able to slightly reduce horizontal inequity.  A longitudinal comparison the ratio of the richest 5% of the districts, to the poorest 5% of the districts, in terms of local and state spending is not promising.  In 1994 the ratio was 1.793 and by 2003 it decreased marginally to 1.491.  This is a difference of $ 2297 per student;[xii] a substantial discrepancy when aggregated for a whole school district.  This horizontal inequity translates into vastly different educations for students.  Things have not improved significantly in terms of vertical equity either.  A regression analysis of categories of expenditures on total education spending found a strong influence of localities upon schools.  As the rates of poverty increased, as measured by number of students receiving free or reduced lunch, local expenditures, teacher salaries, administrative support, and student support services decreased.  This relationship was found in all years of the study; only minor improvements in vertical inequity were found.[xiii] Tennessee’s experience, like other individual state’s efforts, at correcting and entrenched state discriminatory system has been difficult and laced with obstacles.  When localities remain a strong determinant of school funding, even if accounted for in a complex state funding formula, they prevent a fair and balanced educational system from developing.

Educational Financing Structures


States have tried many different ways of correcting the public educational inequities in the past forty years.   The manner of financing schools has been changing since the foundation of the United States, and this is particularly true in the most recent era of reform.  In 2002-3, the national average for local contributions to schools was 42%, the average state share of financing was 49% and the average federal government contributed 9% to primary and secondary public education.  This represents the highest share of contributions for the federal and state governments since independence.  However, these averages mask the vast interstate variance in contribution rates.  Local contributions range from a low of 12.9% in New Mexico, to a high of 62.85% in Nevada.  State contributions range from a low of 30.2% in Nevada to 73.8% in Minnesota.  Federal assistance ranged from 4.3% in New Jersey to 17.7% in Alaska.  The variance in various levels of government contributions is high because the systems which states use to finance schools are highly variable as well. 

There are many variants of funding systems, and new ones are constantly being developed, but they can be simplified into a few simple models.  Foundation systems are the most commonly used by states because they offer a politically acceptable middle path between complete state funding and complete local funding.  In this model the state gives each district a minimum amount per student and the districts are free to supplement this amount by raising additional funds through local taxes.  This method clearly “may provide little if any cross-district equalization”,[xiv] but it can provide a substantial base if the legislature chooses.  States can also cap the amount of additional funds districts can raise and this would “provide substantially more equalization”[xv] than an uncapped system, but it would be more problematic politically.   

Another branch of public education funding systems, which 20% of states are using, are power-equalizing ones.  In the system with recapture (PER) all districts have a common tax base.  The “districts are free to choose different tax rates, but all districts face the same schedule of tax rates and revenues.”  This system creates tax prices less than one for lower income districts, and more than one for high-income districts.   This contrasts with the power-equalizing system without recapture (PEN) “except that districts with tax bases that exceed the specified common base use their own higher base to generate revenue for education”.  This means that districts have a tax price of one for additional funds beyond the equalizing amount.[xvi] 

In a theoretical analysis of multiple financing systems that are in use by states, one study evaluated them based upon the total funds raised, voter preferences, horizontal equity and welfare.[xvii]  The results are interesting, but potentially false due to the highly unrealistic assumptions of heterogeneous family incomes in perfectly sorted communities.  One funding system does not perform consistently ahead of the others, because each system is best at accomplishing only a subset of the total goals set.  The full state funding is clearly the best system for equity.  The state can establish schools that provide the same facilities, instructional support, after-school programs, student-teacher ratios, etc. that all other schools have available.  When ranked by utility and voter preference, PER becomes the best, but it raises less money for education than PEN and foundation, however it does have the best equity ranking after the state system.  PEN raises more than any other system, and 25% more money than the state system.[xviii]  The differences in the multitude of financing systems are difficult to sort through, but one simplifying categorization can be made. 

In response to state court ordered reform, many legislatures placed restrictions upon local governments abilities to raise additional funds to supplement education.  Some of these Tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) have been discussed above, but a broad perspective on their influence has not been introduced.  An empirical study based on data from 48 states from 1971-93 found that there was “no effect of reform on state spending was found unless a TEL” was in place, however in this same secenario there was no influence upon total amount of spending.[xix]  If localities spend less, and the state spends more on education, one can tentatively conclude that TEL’s assist in creating a more equitable school system.  The authors also found that if the state enacted court ordered reform, and a TELs were not in place, then localities spending went unchanged, but state and total spending increased.[xx]  In this instance equity could also improve if the state gives a majority of additional aid to low spending districts.  One thing that is clear is tax and expenditure limitations effectively limit wealthy districts from spending extra money on their schools. 

The decision to enact a education finance system is complicated because individual states need to balance prevailing constitutional interpretations, competing ethical values, and strong local interest groups into one fiscal solution.  The results of this struggle from competing interests have not yet provided as system that is best for all American children.

Regressive Deductibility

 

Residents of the United States face numerous taxes from multiple levels of government.  To lessen the tax burden that individuals face, the federal government since 1986 has allowed people to deduct income and property taxes from their income that they claim for taxation from the federal government.[xxi]  Since 2004, people have been given the option of deducting state and local income taxes, or state and local sales tax.[xxii]  The total amount of these tax expenditures in 2005 was $ 50 billion.  This massive amount has a direct impact upon public school finance in two significant ways.

In 2002-3, the federal government spent $ 38 billion on direct aid to public primary and secondary schools[xxiii], but indirect aid was greater.  A significant portion of property taxes goes to fund local education.  When one deducts their property tax from their income the federal government effectively pays a portion of their school tax bill.  If the school tax bill was $ 1000 and that person’s marginal tax rate was 20%, then the federal government would be paying $ 200 of the local school tax.  30% of federal taxpayers itemize, and in 1987, their average marginal tax rate was 27%.[xxiv]  This percentage indicates that people who file for deductions have upper-middle class incomes.  Further data shows that 90% of taxpayers with incomes of over $ 100,000 file deductions and 14% of taxpayers with incomes of less than $41,000 file deductions.[xxv]  This shows that deductions favor those with high incomes.  

The end effect on schools is that “deductibility more than doubles the federal contribution to schools and is so regressive that, even in the combination with direct federal programs, more federal funds go to high-income than low-income districts”.  This is a highly inequitable result, and it should not be allowed to continue.  In 1989 the average federal aid to schools was  $ 778 per student for low-income districts and $ 932 for high-income districts.[xxvi]  The federal government should be trying to remedy educational inequities, not foster them.

The indirect aid to public schools from the federal government also subsidizes wealthy districts in another important manner.  Because the price for schooling becomes cheaper, residents are willing to pay more for the schools.  Using national data from 1989, in an average voter model the increase in demand for school funding rose 3.1%, and it rose 1.4% using a median voter model.  The national averages blur the distinct impacts upon the low-income and high-income districts.  Using the average voter model, low-income districts experienced a .4% rise in education demand, and wealthy districts demanded 3.4% more education spending.[xxvii]  Another study also found similar results when they concluded, “deductibility has a substantial effect on the amount of personal deductible taxes pad to state and local governments”. 

The ability of taxpayers to deduct state and local income or sales tax, and property tax from their federal tax liability works against children in low-income districts in two regressive ways.  It indirectly pays the school bills of the wealthy, who then demand more funds allocated towards their schools.  This system is not helping individual states in their efforts to become constitutionally compliant, and more importantly it is funneling precious resources away from children who need it the most. 

Death at an Early Age

Under funded schools are a big problem, and they need to be transformed, but the macroeconomic conditions which create poverty are the true culprit.  “Macroeconomic policies like those regulating the minimum wage, job availability, tax rates, federal transportation, and affordable housing create conditions in cities that no existing educational policy of urban school reform can transcend.”[xxviii]   Poverty also poisons the brain.  Children who grow up in families with low-incomes have more environmental, social and economic stresses around them, and this inhibits brain development.  Specifically, researchers found that poverty impairs language development and memory.[xxix]  Equitable schools are part of the solution, but alone they cannot transform poverty. 

When schools are under funded, children’s lives are destroyed, and the ripples in society created by state discrimination are numerous and destabilizing.  “Low levels of literacy are highly correlated with welfare dependency and incarceration”.  Almost 40% of juvenile offenders have learning disabilities that were not addressed in school, and 82% of prisoners are high school dropouts.[xxx]  I personally witnessed overcrowding play a significant role in high school freshman dropouts.  A special education class I was teaching in the Bronx, had four extra students, and one less teacher than required by law, but the administration did nothing, and by the end of the year many students had vanished from school.  They had returned to the streets of the poorest congressional district in the nation without the ability to read or write effectively. 

Most schools in impoverished neighborhoods are currently under funded.  “The cost of educating a child in poverty in New York is approximately twice that of an average-income child in the state”.[xxxi]  However New York has not traditionally addressed this fact.  “When Pineapple entered P.S. 65 in the South Bronx, the government of New York State had already placed a price tag on her forehead.  She and her kindergarten classmates were $ 8,000 babies.  If we wanted to see an $ 18,000 baby, we would have had to drive into the suburbs.”[xxxii]  Localities and the politically engaged drive the highly politicized school funding process in New York.  The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (a misleading name for an organization not striving towards equity) fought New York State in court to increase school funding and they summarized the anachronistic process in the following manner.  The “often conflicting formulas…do not operate neutrally to allocate school funds … they are manipulated to conform to budget agreements reached by the Governor, the Speaker of the State Assembly, and the Senate Majority Leader”.[xxxiii]  Low-income minority students of New York recently won a slightly more modern education funding system after a 13-year struggle with politicians representing upper class white people, but they will still be left behind. 

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s mission statement includes the mundane goals of  “adequate resources and … sound basic education”[xxxiv]; it does not include a call for excellent and equitable educations for all of New York’s children.  CFE encourages insularity, inefficient bureaucracy and an educational hierarchy when they call on districts to raise funds for their own spending beyond what is guaranteed in a revamped foundation formula.  As discussed earlier, foundation financing structures will not improve equity among districts, it only entrenches inequity. 

National Crisis, National Solution

Public education in America is currently a system of fractured schools.  Districts are highly variable in their funding, curricula, services, buildings and quality.  The current national system encourages inefficient use of resources and vastly different educational outcomes.  The national government must fund an education system that is balanced, rigorous, equitable, unifying, and yet flexibly creative. 
Strong educations are correlated with many positive outcomes.  If education was fully funded, it is highly likely that more people would vote and be involved in the political process.  There would be less crime.  People would be healthier.  America would be more productive.[xxxv]  It is true that these conclusions are drawn from correlations, but education does have an impact upon future development, otherwise equitable educations would not be an issue, they would already exist.  Localities want the best for their children, and they are willing to pay more than others to ensure that their children have an advantage in future endeavors.  If education did not create positive outcomes, educating everyone equally would not be so politically contentious.  

Economic inequality and mobility would improve in America, if education were fully funded.  Horatio Algiers spun wonderful stories of how someone born poor could rise up and become rich and famous.  This is fiction.  Today 11% of children from the lowest quintile earned Bachelor’s Degrees while 53% of children from the richest quintile have.[xxxvi]  This is a growing gap and signifies a deepening class system developing.  Alan Greenspan also says that “a dysfunctional education system” is significantly responsible for the increasing inequality of income.[xxxvii]  These recent trends counter American ideals, and impede economic innovation and competitiveness. 

America would be more prosperous if more resources were dedicated to education.  In one multi-country study, using 40 years of data, ran regressions using education expenditures per student as a share of GDP.  She found that among developed countries “expanding secondary and college enrollment rates prove the most beneficial to per capita growth.”  Expenditures per student were so important that they explained over 79% of the variation in GDP growth.  The fastest growing countries had spent the most per capita on secondary education.[xxxviii]  This is an important study that should foster investment in K-12 public school education by the national government.  GDP growth is not a local issue. 

The Tiebout model does not work for education.  In order for the model to be effective a number of strict assumptions must be met.  Perfect sorting is when people have perfect information about where to live and they move to where the local government’s services best suit their needs.  This does not happen in reality.  Poor people can not move to wealthy districts to enroll their children in the best schools in the area because they lack affordable housing, public transportation and decent jobs in or around these exclusive areas.  The second major problem with Tiebout is that education has externalities.  When people are educated in a small districts they do not stay in those districts their whole lives.  Even if they did, their economic choices influence people globally as well as nationally.  America is no longer a country of isolated towns with little connection with other communities, as might have been in an idealized sense, when Tiebout developed his ideas.  Everything is interconnected in today’s modern economy, and educations influence people’s future choices in countless ways.  If anything has external influences it is education.  Based on the breakdowns of the basic assumptions in the Tiebout model, it should not be used at all to finance education.[xxxix]

There are 14,229 school districts in the United States[xl], with an average of 4865 students in each district.[xli]  In Schenectady County, there are 6 districts completely or 60% within its boarders, and 4 districts that are partially within the county.[xlii]  There are approximately 37,101 children in the county, or an average of 6183 students for each of the 6 major districts.[xliii]  This hyper fragmentation is not economically efficient, or pedagogically productive.  Each one of these districts has a phalanx of administrators and staff that perform the same function.  If these districts were consolidated, then many efficiencies could be found in many areas including reducing excess staff, transportation costs, tax collection costs, and the number of extravagantly paid superintendents. 

Schenectady County already is moving towards municipal government consolidation.  They recently won a grant to research how they can integrate the multitude of emergency services.  They also are very proud of their countywide compost and library system.  The library system operates with 26% fewer funds than the average library system due to efficiencies from consolidation.[xliv]  Even at the county level, governmental consolidation can reap great benefits, but to align with Thurgood Marshall’s insightful and just constitutional interpretation, America needs a national educational system. 

One national school district would harmonize all aspects of education by creating high quality structures, support services and pedagogy for all American children.  Consolidation would reduce “financial disparities and racial/economic segregation”, a critical result.  America could have an educational system that is an engine of growth instead of one that divides and limits opportunity. 

A national educational finance system not based on property tax would have a broader base and therefore property owners would pay significantly lower taxes.  One study modeled the changes that would happen in America if education were funded nationally, and he found that there would be significant welfare gains and leisure time for all people.  Specifically he found that “11.66% of per capita income to be given to young workers for them to be indifferent between community wide education … and nation wide public funding”.  This is also in alignment with a previous study that found a rise in welfare levels after a move from community funding to state funding.[xlv]  Although these models do not directly correspond with the current atmosphere of education finance, they do provide insights into the benefits of national funding. 

As we have seen, the fractured education finance system in America has not worked in providing a high quality, equitable education to all children.  Past attempts by individual states to remedy the disparities created by insular structuring and financing have not been able to overcome the unconstitutionality and immorality of the entrenched system.  One way in which to begin the structural transformation needed is to pass a new national amendment.  Jesse Jackson Jr. first introduced such a proposal in March 2003 to the U.S. House of Representatives.  “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding the right of all citizens of the United States to a public education of equal high quality.” [xlvi] Passing an amendment to the Constitution would have countless benefits for the country including lowering education costs, increasing national welfare, increasing GDP growth, reducing economic inequality, and increasing economic mobility.  However, the most important benefit would be the reawakening of the hearts and minds of millions of children.  




















[i] Jean Anyon, in her book Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education and a New Social Movement, argues that all school reform is doomed without addressing the plethora of macroeconomic policies, by the federal government, that create impoverished pockets of minorities in our cities.  While I agree with her thesis, and much of her book, I will confine this brief analysis to the reforms needed for education itself.  
[ii] “The Federal Role in Education” http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html
[iii] Fernandez, R. and Rogerson, R., “Equity and Resources: An Analysis of Education and Finance Systems”, The Journal of Political Economy, vol, III, no. 4, 2003, p. 861.
[iv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
[v] http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=411&page=1
[vi] Coon, Art, “Separate And Unequal: Serrano Played an Important Role in Development of School-District Policy”, http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Dec/1/129939.html
[vii] Thompson, D. and Crampton, F.E., “The Impact of School Finance Litigation: A Long View”, Journal of Education Finance, 27 (Winter 2002), p.796.
[viii] Gruber, J., Public Finance and Public Policy 2nd Edition, Worth Publishers, New York, 2007, p.279.
[ix] Thompson, D. and Crampton, F.E., p.798.
[x] Ibidem, p. 788.
[xi] Rolle, A. and Liu, K., “An Empirical Analysis of Horizontal and Vertical Equity of Public Schools of Tennessee, 1994-2003”, Journal of Education Finance, 32:3, 2007, p.329.
[xii] Ibidem, p. 340.
[xiii] Ibidem, pp.342-7.
[xiv] Loeb, S., “Estimating the Effects of School Finance Reform: a Framework for a Federalist System”, Journal of Public Economics, 80, 2001, p. 246.
[xv] Ibidem.
[xvi] Fernandez, R., and Rogerson, R., “Equity and Resources: An Analysis of Education Finance Systems”, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 3 no. 4, 2003, p.863.
[xvii] Ibidem.
[xviii] Ibidem, pp. 883.
[xix] Blankenau, W. F. and Skidmore, M. L., “School Finance Litigation, Tax and Expenditure Limitations, and Education Spending”, Contemporary Economic Policy, vol.22, no.1, 2004, p. 141.
[xx] Ibidem, p.142.
[xxi] http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/em974.cfm
[xxii] http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=165636,00.html
[xxiii] http://nces.ed.gov/programs/quarterly/vol_7/1_2/4_14.asp
[xxiv] Feldstein, M. and Metcalf, G., “The Effect of Federal Tax Deductibility on State and Local Taxes and Spending”, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 95, no. 4, 1987, p.713.
[xxv] http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/em974.cfm
[xxvi] Loeb, S. and Socias, M., “Federal Contributions to High-Income School Districts: the Use of Tax Deductions for Funding K-12 Education”, Economics Education Review, 23, 2004, pp.85, 93.
[xxvii] Ibidem, p 93.
[xxviii] Anyon, J., Radical Possibilities: Pubic Policy, Urban Education, and a New Social Movement, Routledge, New York, 2005, p.2.
[xxix] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/opinion/18krugman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22poverty+is+poison%22&st=nyt&oref=slogin
[xxx] Anyon, J., Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform, Teachers College Press, New York, 1997, p.181.
[xxxi] Alexander, K. and Wall, A., “Adequate Funding of Education Programs for At-Risk Children: An Econometric Application of Research-Based Cost Differentials”, Journal of Education Finance, 31:3, 2006, p.306.
[xxxii] Kozol, J., The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, Crown Publishers, New York, 2005, p.49.
[xxxiii] Campaign for Fiscal Equity, “Sound Basic Education Task Force: Ensuring Educational Opportunity for All, Part I, An Adequate Education for All”, CFE, 2004, p.7.
[xxxiv] http://www.cfequity.org/
[xxxv] Gruber, p.306.
[xxxvi] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/us/20mobility.html?_r=1&st=cse&sq=%22higher+education+gap+may+slow+economic+mobility%22&scp=1&oref=slogin
[xxxvii] http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/24/alan_greenspan_vs_naomi_klein_on

[xxxviii] Keller, K., “Investment in Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education and the Effects Upon Economic Growth”, Contemporary Economic Policy, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2006, pp.18-32.
[xxxix] Gruber, pp.262-7.
[xl] Anyon, Radical Possibilities, p.104.
[xli]  My own calculations based on data from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
[xlii] http://www.cdrpc.org/SchCoSch.gif
[xliii] My own calculations based on data from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFPopulation?_event=Search&_name=schenectady+county&_state=04000US36&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0&_county=schenectady+county&_cityTown=schenectady+county&_zip=&_sse=on&_lang=en&pctxt=fph
[xliv] Rooney, K., “2008 Program Budget: Adopted”, Schenectady County, New York, pp.3, 7.
[xlv] Soares, J., “Public Education Reform: Community or National Funding of Education?”,  Journal of Monetary Economics, 52, 2005, pp.669-695.
[xlvi] Kozol, p. 374.

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