Ross Rubenstein

Is HOPE Enough? Impacts of Receiving and Losing Merit-Based Financial Aid

In 1993, the creation of Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program accelerated interest in understanding the effects of merit-based student financial aid. This article compares a sample of “borderline” HOPE recipients (students just above the eligibility threshold) with similar nonrecipients to examine differences on four college performance outcomes. The HOPE Scholarship recipients accumulated more credit hours, achieved slightly higher grade point averages, and were more likely to have graduated after 4 years of college. In addition, HOPE recipients who attended 4-year institutions of higher education were more likely to persist in college. Most merit aid recipients lost their scholarships, however, which slightly reduced recipients’advantages on grade point average and credit hour accumulation. Differences in persistence and graduation are significant only for those who maintain eligibility for the scholarship, suggesting that scholarship retention is critical if merit aid programs are to help achieve several of the broad goals of higher education.

The path not taken: How does school organization affect eighth-grade achievement?

Although rearranging school organizational features is a popular school reform, little research exists to inform policymakers about how grade spans affect achievement. This article examines how grade spans and the school transitions that students make between fourth and eighth grade shape student performance in eighth grade. The authors estimate the impact of grade span paths on eighth-grade performance, controlling for school and student characteristics and correcting for attrition bias and quality of original school. They find that students moving from K-4 to 5–8 schools or in K-8 schools outperform students on other paths. Results suggest four possible explanations for the findings—the number and timing of school changes, the size of within-school cohorts, and the stability of peer cohorts.

Spending, Size, and Grade Span in K-8 Schools.

Reorganizing primary school grade spans is a tractable and relatively inexpensive school reform. However, assessing the effects of reorganization requires also examining other organizational changes that may accompany grade span reforms. Using data on New York City public schools from 1996 to 2002 and exploiting within-school variations, we examine relationships among grade span, spending, and size. We find that school grade span is associated with differences in school size, class size, and grade size, though generally not with spending and other resources. In addition, we find class size and grade size differences in the same grade level at schools with different configurations, suggesting that school grade span affects not only school size but also class size and grade size. We find few relationships, though, between grade span and school-level performance, pointing to the need to augment these analyses with pupil-level data. We conclude with implications for research and practice.

Do State-Funded Property Tax Exemptions Increase Local Government Inefficiency? An Analysis of New York State's STAR Program

This study tests the effects of a growing form of indirect state aid - state-supported property tax exemptions - on local government efficiency. We hypothesize that larger exemptions, by lowering the effective tax price paid by local homeowners and thus their incentive to monitor efficiency, will reduce local government efficiency. We test this hypothesis by examining the introduction of New York States large state-subsidized property tax exemption program, which began in 1999. We find evidence that, all else constant, the exemptions have reduced efficiency in districts with larger exemptions, but the effects appear to diminish as taxpayers become accustomed to the exemptions.

Equity and Accountability: The Impact of State Accountability Systems on School Finance

Using an 11-year panel data set containing information on revenues, expenditures, and demographics for every school district in the United States, we examine the effects of state-adopted school accountability systems on the adequacy and equity of school resources. We find little relationship between state implementation of accountability systems and changes in school finance equity, though we do find evidence that states in which courts overturned the school finance system during the decade exhibited significant equity improvements. Additionally, while implementation of accountability per se does not appear linked to changes in resource adequacy, states that implemented strong accountability systems did experience improvements.

Allocating Resources within a Big City School District: New York City after Campaign for Fiscal Equity V. New York

In this brief we take a closer look at the mechanisms used to distribute resources across public schools. We first present what we know about the current distribution of educational resources within New York City and other large city districts. Then we discuss current efforts to promote greater equity in the distribution of resources and improve student performance. We conclude with lessons and policy implications for New York State as it implements the CFE decision in New York City. These findings also apply toother large districts in the state, such as Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany. Our focus in this brief is on vertical equity--ensuring that schools serving students with different levels of need receive appropriately different levels of resources--rather than adequacy. But the two concepts are closely related. If we ensure that students with a variety of needs have ample resources to achieve agreed upon educational goals, we will achieve both school-level adequacy and vertical equity.

Providing Adequate Educational Funding: A State-by-State Analysis of Expenditure Needs

While school finance research and litigation has traditionally focused on the equity of funding across school districts, courts and policy makers are increasingly addressing the adequacy of educational resources. This article reviews recent developments in adequacy research and estimates the additional expenditures required to achieve adequacy across states. Using the cost-adjusted national median of current per-pupil expenditures as a benchmark for adequacy, the results suggest that additional spending of

The Effect of Tax and Expenditure Limitations on Public Education Resources: A Meta-Regression Analysis

15.6-18.5 billion is needed nationally to reach the benchmark in all districts. The additional spending would be concentrated in a small number of states, particularly in urban and urban fringe districts.

Politics, the courts, and the economy: Implications for the future of school financing

While tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) are intended to restrain government taxing and spending, empirical research has arrived at different, sometimes contradictory, conclusions on their impact. In this article, we use meta-regression analysis (MRA) to sort out these differences and to draw conclusions regarding the effect of TELs on one of the largest areas of state and local spending, education. We find evidence that TELs are associated with increases in state funding for education, relative to local or combined state and local funding. The results also suggest that some methodological factors may affect study results and that study publication is associated with findings of negative TEL effects on education resources.

Examining the Nature and Magnitude of Intradistrict Resource Disparities in Mid-Size School Districts

State and Local Finances under Pressure explores the future of state and local government fiscal systems given the numerous pressures they face from economic, legal, technological, demographic and political forces. It explores how these multiple forces play out in terms of the changes state and local governments should and are likely to make.