§ Introduction and Overview The Tiebout (1956) model assumes that households choose their community of residence in part by the quality of its public schools. For the model to operate efficiently, school districts should be numerous. In 1916, there were over 200,000 public school districts in the United States. By 2005, there were fewer than 15,000. Most observers regard this decline as evidenc...

The purpose of this study was to explore diffusion of information technology (IT) infrastructure and high school student achievement in four urban school districts. The study sought to address any significant correlations between student achievement and information technology infrastructure funding. The study used the American College Test (ACT) and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores from 94...

Donald J . Boyd, Hamil ton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James H. Wyckoff School districts are confronting difficult choices in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In prior recessions, districts often muddled through by imposing a combination of tax increases and expenditure cuts that avoided involuntary personnel reductions. Today, the financial imbalance in many school districts is so larg...

This paper examines the residential location and school choice responses to the desegregation of large urban public school districts. We decompose the well documented decline in white public enrollment following desegregation into migration to suburban districts and increased private school enrollment, and find that migration was the more prevalent response. Desegregation caused black public en...

BACKGROUND As society continues to focus on the importance of academic achievement, the physical environment of schools should be addressed as 1 of the critical factors that influence academic outcomes. The School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) 2006 provides, for the first time, a comprehensive look at the extent to which schools have health-promoting physical school environment pol...

How and in what ways money matters in education is a long-standing question among policymakers and education researchers. This issue is particularly salient to large, urban school districts, where debates on the organization of school often gravitate toward issues of financial resources and academic performance. Large urban districts, the story goes, spend more money per pupil but generate lowe...

While the theoretical public finance literature argues that house prices should be influenced by the demand for local public services, there is little direct evidence concerning changes in house prices when these services are altered. Previous empirical studies have relied on cross-sectional identification of the relationship between house prices and variables that may proxy for the perceived q...

BACKGROUND Recognizing the growing childhood overweight problem, a number of school-based strategies, including policy approaches, have been proposed and are being implemented to address the problem considering the amount of time children spend in schools. This paper describes the results of a pilot study that tested approaches to collecting U.S. school district policy information regarding phy...

BACKGROUND School wellness policies are a key component to the prevention of adolescent obesity. This national research study sought to understand the wellness environment in school districts across the country and to identify challenges districts face and needs they have in order to effectively implement, monitor, and evaluate school wellness policies. The study determined (1) perceptions, bar...

Disclaimer: This paper is released to inform interested parties of research and to encourage discussion. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Census Bureau. Summary The Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program provides estimates for selected income and poverty statistics for states, counties, and school districts. The main objective o...