Missing School, Missing Funds: How Attendance-based Funding Impacts Fiscal Equity in Texas

• In Event: Money Matters: Finance, Markets, and Equity in School Choice Systems

Abstract

This descriptive study assesses how attendance-based funding relates to the horizontal and vertical equity of the Texas public education finance system. I conducted a descriptive analysis of district-level data for Texas public schools during the 2022-23 school year to examine whether school district characteristics could predict for variations in Average Daily Attendance (ADA) rates—the metric the state uses to count a district’s students and determine its allocations. My analysis found a negative correlation between ADA rate and the share of economically disadvantaged students in a district, a relationship whose strength is moderated by the type of community a district is located in. These results suggest that attendance-based funding hinders fiscal equity in Texas to the detriment of students from lower-income households.

Author

• Blake DeVante Marlowe, University of Texas at Austin