Political Economy of Public Education Finance : Equity, Political Institutions, and Inter-School District Competition

Political Economy of Public Education Finance clarifies organizational, political, and socioeconomic contexts in equity in public education spending, arguing that through appropriate policy and reorganization of school finance, policymakers can reform the organizational and political set-up of school districts for more effective public education.

Political Economy of Public Education Finance takes a unique approach in examining distribution of public education spending across urban school districts in the USA. It provides a thorough and rigorous quantitative examination of the joint roles of school choice and political institutions in inequity in school district spending in the USA. This book additionally provides conceptual and empirical treatment to a topic within the vast school choice scholarship that has been studied the least so far: competition among school districts in the urban regional market. The author further offers insight into the role of political institutions in ensuring equity in public school spending. These institutions provide critical leadership in managing inter-school district competition in the regional context. Since equity in school finance is the outcome of interest in this book, it includes necessary and sufficient attention to the topic too.