A statistical analysis of the effect that education finance litigation has on per -student revenues in the states.

摘要

This dissertation was designed to determine whether education finance litigation had benefited per-student revenues (PSR) for the fifty states within the United States of America during the period of time from 1970 through 1996. Revenues from 1965 through 1996 for all fifty states were used in the analysis. The method was to determine whether a state had increased its per-student revenues at a greater level after experiencing litigation than a state that had not experienced litigation during the time period chosen for the study. Three questions provided the focus of the study: (1) Did PSR levels increase overall for the fifty states during the thirty-two year period of education finance litigation? The first question asked whether there had been an increase in PSR levels for constant dollars during the thirty-two years of the study. Had no growth been observable during those years, then any changes in PSR would be correlated with inflation and any analysis of differences would have been improbable. (2) If PSR increased overall, did states that experienced litigation improve their PSR in relation to the national average? The second question focused on the observable differences in PSR for each state in relation to the state's ranking compared to the national average and to the state's standard scores compared to the national average. The purpose was to determine whether states that had experienced litigation at the state supreme court level had improved in ranking or standard scores in relation to those states that had not experienced litigation. (3) If growth in PSR levels occurred, did the change in growth differ significantly among the various categories and was that change related to litigation? The last question analyzed the PSR levels for the various states over the thirty-two years chosen for the study, utilizing a multiple regression model to determine the effect that litigation had on the growth of PSR levels for the states.