Dissertation

Leveling the playing field with school revenues and expenditures: does money really matter?

Education is often portrayed as the passport to the future and revered as the great equalizer for attaining the American Dream. Public schools in America strive to provide a path to the middle class for children from hard-working families in every community, particularly those who are living in poverty. However, there are notable inequities in the amount of revenues and expenditures for the public school system throughout the United States. Too often the schools serving students with the greatest needs receive the fewest resources. This is a social justice concern. In this dissertation, the principal goal was to examine how California K-12 public school districts were financed, the equitable (or inequitable) distribution of funding during 2011-12, and its relevance to the academic achievement gap. Statistical data analyses were conducted using quantitative methods such as regression analysis for the purpose of discerning the relationship between per pupil expenditures (PPE) and average teacher salaries, and between PPE and student achievement (API Base Scores and AYP Math Proficiency). The major findings indicated that there was no statistically significant relationship between the independent and dependent variables for this particular sample.

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