Does Money Matter More in the Country? Education Funding Reductions and Achievement in Kansas, 2010-2018

SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://sagepub.com

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38

National Science Foundation (NSF)

DRL1749275

Educational Finance; Academic Achievement; Rural Schools; Budgeting; Retrenchment; Block Grants; State Aid; Rural Urban Differences; Elementary Secondary Education

Kansas; Arkansas; Connecticut; Delaware; Idaho; Maryland; Missouri; North Carolina; North Dakota; South Dakota; Utah; Vermont; Illinois; Colorado

2332-8584

The U.S. Department of Education made recent technical changes reducing eligibility for the Rural and Low-Income School Program. Given smaller budgets and lower economies of scale, rural districts may be less able to absorb short-term funding cuts and experience stronger negative achievement effects. Kansas implemented a state-level finance change (block grant funding) after 2015, which froze district revenue regardless of enrollment and reduced funding in districts where enrollment increased. Difference-in-differences models compare achievement before and after block grant implementation to estimate effects of funding cuts separately in rural and nonrural districts. Between-state and within-state comparisons offer complementary identification strategies in which the strengths of one approach help address limitations of the other. Revenue/spending reductions are similar by geography but represent a larger fraction of rural district budgets. Results indicate that revenue reductions have larger implications for achievement in rural areas, where they represent a larger proportion of the total budget.

As Provided

2021

EJ1279991