Governor wins important victories involving redistribution of money for schools and how much revenue to expect to be coming in for the state.

Representatives erupted into celebration after the unanimous passage of a $25 billion budget just hours before the session wrapped up. The Senate had approved the budget shortly before the House vote.

Michigan is poised to became the second state to "pause" implementation of the Common Core State Standards for math and language arts education Tuesday after the state Senate approved a budget barring funding for the guidelines.

Income taxes would be cut across the board, private school vouchers would expand statewide and public school spending would be allowed to increase under provisions added to the state budget in the early morning hours Wednesday.

Republican deals to cut income taxes, expand private voucher schools and reject a federally funded expansion of Medicaid are supposed to come before the Legislature's budget committee Tuesday.

It will soon be Gov. Rick Snyder’s turn to officially sign off on Michigan’s next state spending plan for schools and state departments.

The governor cut $28 million in state and federal funding for a new Medicaid computer system.

Senate Democrats want to direct $508 million more to Ohio schools over the next two years by eliminating part of a GOP-proposed tax cut for upper-income Ohioans.

A logjam on the budget broke swiftly late Wednesday as the House and Senate advanced water and school fund measures each was demanding of the other.

Gov. Rick Snyder and Republican legislative leaders reached an agreement Tuesday on how to divvy up nearly $702 million in surplus revenue as lawmakers race to complete the 2014 fiscal year budget by June 1.

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.

Many education officials will say that the state's method of funding schools is "broken" and that you should contact your state legislators and demand "fair," "sustainable" or "adequate" funding for public schools. Before you decide whether or not you agree with your local school officials, ask them these questions first.

The Citizens’ Checklist outlines a series of adjustments that all stakeholders in K-12 education should consider, discuss and implement in order to avoid or minimize any reduction in teaching staff that affects classroom instruction and learning.

There are three directional strategies that state policy makers will need to incorporate during this decade long inflection. State policy makers need to lead on school based budgeting, blended learning, and performance-based employment.

The phenomenon, of rising costs without commensurate increases in output, has been labeled Baumol’s cost disease.  While education differs in important ways from other service sectors, improvement in productivity in other economic sectors may hold important lessons for understanding how the education system can become more efficient and effective. Ways to improve productivity in education include finding efficiencies at every level, differential pay for teachers, outsourcing services and focusing on an academic mission.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundations' ideas to cut waste, balance the budget and stimulate the budget without raising taxes.

The document explains why and how New York state developed such massive budget deficits and identifies programmatic changes to begin closing the gaps, including privatization and competitive contracting, cost reductions and tax policy goals to promote economic growth.

A detailed, comprehensive alternative budgeting plan addressing Illinois' immediate financial problems focused on three key elements: spending reallignment, right-sizing government labor costs and pension fund reform.

Using weighted student formula's decentralized system, education funds are attached to each student and the students can take that money directly to the public school of their choice. At least 15 major school districts have moved to this system of backpack funding. Reason Foundation's new Weighted Student Formula Yearbook examines how the budgeting system is being implemented in each of these places and, based on the real-world data, creates a series of "best practices" that other districts and states can follow to improve the quality of their schools. The results from districts using student-based funding are promising.