The Equality of Public School District Funding in the United States: A National Status Report

For over 30 years, the distribution of educational opportunities and the equality of education funding across communities has generated considerable interest among policy makers, the public, and the courts. This article takes advantage of national data sets to examine funding equality across school districts in 49 states for fiscal years 1992 and 1995. It presents rankings of each state's funding equality and explores factors that may be related to the level of equality within states and to changes across years.
The analyses suggest that, overall, within-state equality improved slightly between 1992 and 1995, although most states' relative rankings changed little during the period. States with fewer school districts relative to students tended to have a more equal distribution of education dollars than states with more districts. States with higher proportions of revenues provided by state governments generally showed a more equitable distribution of resources than states in which districts were more dependent on local revenues.     

Providing Adequate Educational Funding: A State–by–State Analysis of Expenditure Needs

While school finance research and litigation has traditionally focused on the equity of funding across school districts, courts and policy makers are increasingly addressing the adequacy of educational resources. This article reviews recent developments in adequacy research and estimates the additional expenditures required to achieve adequacy across states. Using the cost–adjusted national median of current per–pupil expenditures as a benchmark for adequacy, the results suggest that additional spending of $15.6–18.5 billion is needed nationally to reach the benchmark in all districts. The additional spending would be concentrated in a small number of states, particularly in urban and urban fringe districts.     

School vouchers and academic performance: results from three randomized field trials

This article examines the effects of school vouchers on student test scores in New York, New York, Dayton, Ohio, and Washington, DC. The evaluations in all three cities are designed as randomized field trials. The findings, therefore, are not confounded by the self‐selection problems that pervade most observational data. After 2 years, African Americans who switched from public to private school gained, relative to their public‐school peers, an average of 6.3 National Percentile Ranking points in the three cities on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The gains by city were 4.2 points in New York, 6.5 points in Dayton, and 9.2 points in Washington. Effects for African Americans are statistically significant in all three cities. In no city are statistically significant effects observed for other ethnic groups, after either 1 or 2 years. © 2002 by the Association for Policy Analysis and Management.     

A Study of the Frequency of Self-Mutilation in a Community Sample of Adolescents

Currently little research exists examining self-mutilation (SM) in community samples of adolescents, despite tentative findings suggesting that self-harming behaviors, including SM may be increasing. The present study provides a comprehensive review of previous literature on the frequency of SM as well as preliminary epidemiological data concerning the frequency of SM in a community sample of high schools students. The relationship between SM, anxiety, and depressive symptomatology was also assessed. Four hundred and forty students from two schools, an urban and a suburban high school, were given a screening measure designed to assess for SM. Students who indicated that they hurt themselves on purpose also participated in a follow-up interview. Based on interviews it was found that 13.9% of all students reported having engaged in SM behavior at some time. Girls reported significantly higher rates of SM than did boys (64 vs. 36%, respectively). Self-cutting was found to be the most common type of SM, followed by self-hitting, pinching, scratching, and biting. Finally, students who self-mutilate reported significantly more anxiety and depressive symptomatology than students who did not self-mutilate. Results are also presented concerning demographic information and patterns of SM behavior.     

Reviews

Curtis Keeble, Britain and the Soviet Union, 1917–89. London: Macmillan, 1990, xiv+387 pp., £40.00.

Baruch Hazan, Gorbachev's Gamble: The 19th All‐Union Party Conference. Boulder, San Francisco, and London: Westview Press, 1990, 485 pp., $42.50.

Martin Crouch, Revolution and Evolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Politics. New York, London: Philip Allan, 1989, x+245 pp., £24.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Adam Westoby, The Evolution of Communism. Oxford: Polity Press, 1989, vii+333 pp., £29.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Mikael Sandberg, Learning from Capitalists. A Study of Soviet Assimilation of Western Technology. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1989, xi+264 pp., SEK 148.00 p/b.

Stephen Fortescue, Science Policy in the Soviet Union. London: Routledge, 1990, ix+230 pp., £35.00.

Zhores Medvedev, The Legacy of Chernobyl. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990, 344 pp., £19.95.

Jonathon R. Adelman & Christiann Lea Gibson, eds., Contemporary Soviet Military Affairs: The Legacy of World War II. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989, viii+193 pp., $39.95.

Ellen Brun & Jacques Hersch, Soviet‐Third World Relations in a Capitalist World: The Political Economy of Broken Promises. London & Basingstoke, Macmillan Press (in association with the Danish International Development Agency, Danida), 1990, x+335 pp., £35.00.

Douglas A. Macgregor, The Soviet‐East German Military Alliance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, xii+178 pp., £25.00 ($34.50).

Stanislaw Gomulka, Yong‐Chool Ha, Cae‐One Kim, eds., Economic Reforms in the Socialist World. Basingstoke & London: Macmillan, 1989, x+244 pp., £35.00.

Jacques Sapir, Les fluctuations économiques en URSS 1941–1985. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1989, 239 pp., 200 Francs.

Eugene Shirley, Jr. & Michael Rowe, eds., Candle in the Wind: Religion in the Soviet Union. Lanham, MD: Ethics and Public Policy Center Publishers, 1989, xxvii+356 pp., $39.50 h/b., $21.95 p/b.

Nikki R. Keddie & Mark J. Gasiorowski eds., Neither East Nor West: Iran, the USSR, and the USA. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990, ix+295 pp., £30.00, h b., £9.95 p b.

R. Craig Nation, War on War: Lenin, the Zimmerwald Left and the Origins of Communist Internationalism. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1990, xiv+313 pp., £42.25.     

European trade policy in Africa

A detailed critique of where aid has got Africa so far and why the ‘big push’ may not be the answer for the continent, particularly if donor agencies do not embark on substantial internal reforms and Africa itself does not act to improve its own lot.