Working paper #51
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WORKING PAPER #51 Which Districts Get Into Financial Trouble and Why: Michigan’s Story
David Arsen Michigan State University
Thomas A. DeLuca Univeristy of Kansas
Yongmei Ni University of Utah
Michael Bates University of California, Riverside
November 2015
The content of this paper does not necessarily reflect the views of The Education Policy Center or Michigan State University
Author Information David Arsen
Professor, Department of Educational Administration College of Education, Michigan State University
Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies
School of Education, University of Kansas
Yongmei Ni Associate Professor, Department of Education Leadership & Policy
College of Education, University of Utah
Michael Bates Assistant Professor, Department of Economics
University of California, Riverside
Abstract Like other states, Michigan has implemented a number of policies to change governance and administrative arrangements in local school districts deem to be in financial emergency. This paper examines two questions: (1) Which districts get into financial trouble and why? and (2) Among fiscally distressed districts, are there significant differences in the characteristics of districts in which the state does and does not intervene? We analyze factors influencing district fund balances utilizing fixed effect models on a statewide panel dataset of Michigan school districts from 1995 to 2012. We evaluate the impact of state school finance and choice policies, over which local districts have limited control, and local district resource allocation decisions (e.g., average class size, teacher salaries, and spending shares devoted to administration, employee health insurance, and contracted services). Our results indicate that 80% of the explained variation in district fiscal stress is due to changes in districts’ state funding, to enrollment changes including those associated with school choice policies, and to the enrollment of high-cost, special education students. We also find that the districts in which the state has intervened have significantly higher shares of African-American and low-income students than other financially troubled Michigan districts, and they are in worse financial shape by some measures.
Acknowledgments The work reported here was partially supported by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (Arsen and Ni) and by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305B090011 to Michigan State University for a doctoral training program in the economics of education (Bates). We received excellent research assistance from Dongsook Han. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Education Policy Center, Michigan State University, the ACLU or the U.S. Department of Education. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2015 annual conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy.
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Which Districts Get Into Financial Trouble and Why: Michigan’s Story
David Arsen Professor, Department of Educational Administration College of Education, Michigan State University
Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies School of Education, University of Kansas
Associate Professor, Department of Education Leadership & Policy College of Education, University of Utah
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics University of California, Riverside
The work reported here was partially supported by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (Arsen and Ni) and by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305B090011 to Michigan State University for a doctoral training program in the economics of education (Bates). We received excellent research assistance from Dongsook Han. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Education Policy Center, Michigan State University, the ACLU or the U.S. Department of Education. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2015 annual conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy.
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Which Districts Get Into Financial Trouble and Why: Michigan’s Story
ABSTRACT Like other states, Michigan has implemented a number of policies to change governance and administrative arrangements in local school districts deem to be in financial emergency. This paper examines two questions: (1) Which districts get into financial trouble and why? and (2) Among fiscally distressed districts, are there significant differences in the characteristics of districts in which the state does and does not intervene? We analyze factors influencing district fund balances utilizing fixed effect models on a statewide panel dataset of Michigan school districts from 1995 to 2012. We evaluate the impact of state school finance and choice policies, over which local districts have limited control, and local district resource allocation decisions (e.g., average class size, teacher salaries, and spending shares devoted to administration, employee health insurance, and contracted services). Our results indicate that 80% of the explained variation in district fiscal stress is due to changes in districts’ state funding, to enrollment changes including those associated with school choice policies, and to the enrollment of high-cost, special education students. We also find that the districts in which the state has intervened have significantly higher shares of African-American and low-income students than other financially troubled Michigan districts, and they are in worse financial shape by some measures.
INTRODUCTION Legislation in a growing number of states authorizes state governments to take over local school districts experiencing financial emergencies (Anderson, 2012; Bowman, 2013 and 2011). Yüklə 326,23 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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