Opting Out on the Bill: Voluntary Adequacy Funding in Maryland

• In Event: P-20 Education Finance

Abstract

School finance, historically tied to property wealth, led to great disparities in educational resources contributing to academic achievement gaps (Condon & Roscigno, 2003). Adequacy and equity emerged as guiding principles from court mandates to restructure K-12 financing in over 20 twenty states. In 2002, Maryland became the first state to voluntarily implement comprehensive school finance reform predicated on these principles. To better understand the effect of this policy, we examine whether outcomes differ for districts that provided an equitable education as opposed to those who did. This work contributes to scholarship on school finance reform by investigating a voluntary policy; it allows us to make an initial exploration of the generalizability of research on court-mandated reforms.

Authors

• Maida A. Finch, Salisbury University

• Peter Trabert Goff, University of Wisconsin - Madison