文档介绍：A Constrained Bureaucratic Model of Behavioral Responses to School Finance Reform
Matthew N. Murray
Laura D. Ullrich
The University of Tennessee
Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and
Center for Business and Economic Research
716 Stokely Management Center
Knoxville, TN 37996
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Winthrop University
104 Thurmond Building
Rock Hill, SC 29733
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February 2013
Abstract
Tennessee's Small Schools v. McWherter case led to a significant reform of the state’s school finance system during 1992-1993 with the phased-in implementation of the Basic Education Program (BEP). This paper examines the impact Tennessee's school finance reform had on education spending using plete panel of schools districts from 1989-2006. Results indicate that increased state funding for education led to a reduction in locally-provided discretionary funding. Institutional features of the reform such as the five year phase-in of state funds and the nominal maintenance of effort spending requirement decreased locally-provided funding relative to what would otherwise have been observed.
Keywords: Local Public Economies, State-Local Public Finance, Education Economics
1. Introduction
Since the finding in California’s Serrano v. Priest case in the early 1970s, considerable attention has been paid to the way in which state and local governments fund public education as well as the consequences arising from these funding decisions. Many states have faced court challenges related to their school finance mechanisms since Serrano v. Priest that have led to court-mandated alterations to their funding formulas. Most of these cases have been initiated because of concerns over spending inequities between high- and-low wealth school districts. The policy responses and subsequent attention by scholars are not surprising since public education is the largest spending category of state and local governments, mitments of