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Jan 8, 2025 | 
educationnext.org | Christian Barnard
Universal private school choice programs began proliferating after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. In total, 12 states have adopted programs that allow all families—regardless of income level or whether they were previously enrolled in public schools—to access public funds and use them for private school tuition or other educational services.
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Oct 25, 2024 | 
reason.org | Christian Barnard |Kyle Abbott
The last five years have brought major challenges to the K-12 educational landscape in Virginia—the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures, a rise in chronic absenteeism, and more. Public education has been changing at a rapid pace. And yet, Virginia continues to fund its public schools using its outdated Standards of Quality (SOQ) formula that was developed in the 1970s. This system is non-transparent, inflexible, and unfair.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
reason.org | Christian Barnard
This column is the fifth and final in a series examining Arkansas’s K-12 education funding system and the state legislature’s biennial adequacy review process (Here are the first, second, third, and fourth posts). The series analyzes how Arkansas got its current education funding system, how it works, and what components policymakers should improve to achieve a modernized education funding formula that is better for students and more amenable to education choice.
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Oct 20, 2024 | 
reason.org | Christian Barnard
This column is the fourth in a series examining Arkansas’s K-12 funding system and the state legislature’s biennial adequacy review process. The series aims to analyze how Arkansas got its current education funding system, how it works, and what components policymakers should improve to achieve a modernized education funding formula that is better for students and more amenable to education choice.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
reason.org | Christian Barnard
Summary California Proposition 2 allows the state to issue $10 billion in general obligation bonds for the construction, improvement, and repair of educational facilities statewide. The measure would allocate up to $8.5 billion for California’s K-12 school buildings and up to $1.5 billion for the state’s community colleges.
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Aug 6, 2024 | 
reason.org | Christian Barnard
This column is the third in a series examining Arkansas’s K-12 funding system and the state legislature’s biennial adequacy review process. The series aims to analyze how Arkansas got its current education funding system, how it works, and what components policymakers should improve to achieve a modernized education funding formula that is better for students and more amenable to education choice. As detailed in earlier series installments, Arkansas is conducting a biennial adequacy review.
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Jun 27, 2024 | 
reason.org | Aaron Smith |Christian Barnard
Executive SummaryPublic school enrollment is falling fast, and hold harmless policies that provide funding protections for school districts are becoming increasingly costly. These policies can broadly be classified in two ways, with each type serving different aims. Declining enrollment protections allow school districts to use previous, rather than current, student counts for funding purposes.
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Apr 29, 2024 | 
reason.org | Christian Barnard
This column is the second in a series examining Arkansas’s K-12 funding system and the state legislature’s biennial adequacy review process. The series aims to analyze how Arkansas got its current education funding system, how it works, and what components policymakers should improve to achieve a modernized education funding formula that is better for students and more amenable to education choice.
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Apr 12, 2024 | 
showmeinstitute.org | Christian Barnard
Have you ever wondered how educational choice effects state and local taxpayers? Earlier this year, EdChoice and Reason Foundation launched a brand-new tool, the School Choice Calculator, to provide legislators, legislative staff, and stakeholders with an easy way to learn about the potential fiscal effects of funding educational opportunities in their state.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
thehill.com | Aaron Smith |Christian Barnard
President Biden’s signature education initiative has proven to be a costly failure for students. And now the administration is asking for even more money to make up for the blunder. The Biden administration’s federal K-12 budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year calls for an $8 billion grant program to further support public schools’ COVID-19 recovery efforts.
