Resource Equity in Washington School Capital Finance: Analysis of the School Construction Assistance Program

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Issues in Education Policy: Finance Reform, Segregation, and Affordable Housing (Table 4)

Abstract

Current spending on school facilities has been identified as insufficient to meet the health, safety, and educational needs of students across the country. This problem persists in part because school districts rely heavily on local financing for capital projects, and states vary in the type of policy and funding available to support school construction. While the school finance literature is robust in examining resource equity within and across operational school spending, less attention has been paid to the distribution of school capital resources, and specifically a state's role in allocating resources. In this paper, I use a resource equity framework to examine the long-standing School Construction Assistance Program (SCAP) in Washington state, which provides supplementary funding to school districts for capital construction projects supported by local revenue. I use more than thirty years of state administrative data and a present-day inventory of all public school buildings in Washington to provide a landscape analysis of the program and identify patterns of funding distribution within the program and across the state.

Author

• Claire McMorris, University of Washington
  Presenting Author