State officials announced a $323 million surplus today, but the money was automatically committed to paying the state's debt to public schools and replenishing budget reserves.

The President reaffirmed his view that decisions about education should be left to states and not the federal government. “I believe education is an issue that is best addressed at the state level,’’ the president said, “and governors are in the best position to have the biggest impact.’’

Since 2009, Ohio has been effectively without a school funding formula, the equation that answers vexing policy questions and doles out dollars accordingly. The decisions that go into calculating what's paid to Ohio's 613 school districts and 353 charter schools have the potential to affect many Ohioans' tax bills, home values, and the ultimate quality of the education Ohio children receive.

Gov. Chris Christie today will unveil a state budget that is expected to show how he intends to pay the first installment of his proposed income tax cut and how much state aid public schools will get.

Gov. Christie presented a $32.1 billion budget to the state Legislature this afternoon that increases school aid by $212.5 million, makes the largest payment toward public employee pensions in state history and uses rosy revenue projections to help pay for an income tax cut.

The release of competing state budgets Sunday by the House and Senate shows that just because Republicans control the Virginia General Assembly does not mean they agree on everything. Not even close.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, fearing that 20 Democrats will block passage of a Senate version in a floor vote a week away, released a letter he had written to two Democratic leaders urging them to reach a compromise with their 20 Republican counterparts. It provoked a scalding response.

Unlike a Feb. 1 plan by the Legislature's chief budget writers, the Democratic chief executive said Thursday he wants to tap reserves to avert the closure of Santiam Correctional Institution in Salem, block a further shift of inmates to other temporary beds, and ease or cancel some smaller cuts in education and human services.

Top lawmakers said the state operating budget they're drafting as an alternative to one proposed by Gov. Robert Bentley likely will chop General Fund spending for non-education agencies next year more than Bentley proposed.

With a month left in the lawmaking session, the House budget that passed largely along party lines remains out of sync with the Senate's spending priorities on a few major issues - such as health-care and environmental spending.

Public schools grew staffing at a rate four times faster than the increase in students over that time period. Of those personnel, teachers' numbers increased 252 percent, while administrators and other non-teaching staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than seven times the increase in students.

Research shows that all forms of school choice tried in the United States have led to improvement in academic outcomes for students who remain in public schools or have led to no effect on academic outcomes for students who remain in public schools. Thus, the evidence on academic outcomes is one-sided. Greater school choice does not harm academic outcomes for students who remain in public schools.

America's public schools saw a 96 percent increase in students but increased administrators and other non-teaching staff a staggering 702 percent since 1950, according to a new study of school personnel by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

Prepare to engage in the budget process by familiarizing yourself with the data available and speaking with your school board officials.

ALEC's 17th edition of the Report Card on American Education contains a comprehensive overview of educational achievement levels (performance and gains for low-income students) for the 50 states and the District of Columbia (see full report for complete methodology). The Report Card details what education policies states currently have in place and pro

The sixth-annual Tennessee Pork Report is chock-full yet again, of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of taxpayer money by state and local government officials. Despite a changing political landscape in Tennessee, wasteful government spending has not disappeared.

Gov. Mitch Daniels Numerous signed legislation that implemented his wide-ranging reform agenda, including expanding the school options available to Indiana families through vouchers and charter school opportunities and increasing accountability for both schools and teachers.

The proposed House budget would eliminate online learning for grades K-6, displacing more than 2,000 students. This would neither save the state money nor serve the interests of Washington's students.

These data are taken from the National Public Education Finance Survey and show major categories of revenue and expenditure for each public school district for fiscal 2004 through fiscal 2008.

This primer does not make policy recommendations. Instead, it explains how revenues are raised for Michigan's elementary and secondary public school system; how money is distributed to education programs and school districts once it is collected by various taxing authorities; and how districts budget monies for the various activities involved in operating schools and other educational programming.

Ben Scafidi's PowerPoint presentation, "Some Fiscal Issues and School Choice."

With state and local education budgets under pressure and questions about student achievement front and center, administrators, parents, and teachers are now looking to advanced and increasingly less-expensive technology as a way to help address some of the current issues in education. One school district in particular, the Mooresville Graded School District, in Mooresville, NC stands out as an example of how technology can help improve student achievement in times of tightening budgets

South Carolina should refuse federal No Child Left Behind Funds and the accompanying mandates and find a way to fund poor school districts adequately.

Online learning can help at-risk students and is also cost-effective. Per pupil costs at the state’s virtual charter schools are an estimated 25 percent to 65 percent lower than at traditional public schools.

The state should discontinue the confusing practice of allocating funds to each school district using various funding formulas. Coupled with open enrollment for schools statewide, student-centered funding would ensure that schools of the parents' choosing receive funds necessary to educate each child and nothing more. The state should also implement a merit pay system for teachers that will pay a portion of their salary based on the value that they add to their students' academic performance.

Parents should have more control over how tax funds are spent on their own children. Our state should allow more freedom for parents to choose - or even create - public schools that best meet their children's needs. T

Explanation and review of virtual education in Arkansas.

Funding for core Arkansas government functions-education, corrections and transportation-could occur at slightly increased rates while other operations are frozen at current levels, providing $31 million in savings to cut state income, capital gains and grocery tax rates.

The idea behind student based budgeting (SBB) is for school dollars to be dispersed on a per-pupil basis and to follow individual students into schools where the principals determine how the money is best spent.

The Texas Taxpayer Savings Grant Program is designed to reduce the amount of general revenue spent on public education by reducing enrollment in and the associated costs of the state’s public K-12 schools. The program works by reimbursing parents and legal guardians for “the amount of actual tuition costs or 60 percent of the state average per- pupil spending maintenance and operations expenditures, whichever is less,” should they choose to enroll their child in a private school, rather than a Texas public school.