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Reports & Studies

No Guarantees: Rating the Cost-Efficiency of Virginia School Districts

Does cost-efficiency of state programs matter? Virginia Governor Tim Kaine says it does. Confronted with a state budget shortfall in excess of $641 million, Governor Kaine recently advised state legislative finance committees that the state would “need to look for new ways of doing business that are more efficient.”

The most logical place to begin evaluating efficiency is the state’s single largest program, its public school system, which consumes more than a third of state government’s budget and over half of all local governments’ budgets. Are school districts putting tax dollars to the best and highest use? Do all districts operate with equal cost-efficiency? This study explores these questions.

Education Funding in Virginia: Aligning State Dollars to Achievement Priorities [Report]

State costs for Virginia public schools increased by $1.28 billion in 2004 and $1.5 billion in 2006. Yet legislators have no idea how much state funding actually reaches a given school or student, or what state dollars buy in terms of educational achievement and performance.

This report examines the process, limitations, and flaws of Virginia's Standard of Quality funding system, a school district-based funding method implemented decades before achievement became state and national priorities. It also explores a student-based funding model that would be more transparent and supportive of the state's achievement priorities.

Too Much of a Good Thing [Report]

More than half of Virginia's school districts increased staff between 1997 and 2004 even though their student enrollment decreased. This report includes district-by-district data on enrollment, instructional staff, and expenditures of Virginia's public school system.

Society's Watchdogs: a Study of Newspaper Coverage of Education News and Reforms in One State [Study]

This study's findings, based on telephone surveys of education print reporters and analysis of 403 education-related articles published over eight months by four daily news publishers in Virginia, suggest the public's criticism may be warranted when it comes to coverage of elementary and secondary education.

• Executive Summary
• Education: A Closed Conversation
• Embedded Watchdogs
• Disenfranchised Voices
• Conclusion

Paying Private Prep School Prices for Public Schools [Report]

The per-pupil cost of educating a student in Virginia's public schools is almost twice the tuition in the state's private schools. In several Virginia school districts, the per-pupil spending in public school now exceeds the annual tuition charged by many elite private schools.