Chapter 9: Using Student Level Data to Measure School Finance Adequacy: An Exploratory Analysis

Public School Finance today has begun focusing closely on the issue of adequacy, or how much money is needed to provide an education sufficient for students to perform at high levels (Clune, 1994). A number of states have begun efforts to determine the level of resources necessary to provide an adequate education to all children. What is clear from all of these efforts to date is that ascertaining these costs for each child is difficult given the current level of data available. While there have been great strides in recent years in understanding school level data (see, e.g., Goertz & Stiefel, 1998), it is not clear that even this level of detail will provide what is needed. This chapter offers an alternative approach, looking at individual student resources, both within schools and in the neighborhoods in which schools are located.