Future of Educational Finance
Grand Canyon University: EDA-535
October, 2013

Gary Marx stated “identifying, monitoring and considering the implications of trends is one of the most basic processes for creating the future” (Stevenson, 2010 p. 1). The world of education is forever changing at a pace that gets more rapid as the years go on. The decisions made in the past have laid the foundation of education today, as will recent changes affect the future. Programs such as choice schooling and No Child Left Behind will impact school funding. Rulings such as the Lemon Test and separation of church and state will impact decisions that can potentially result in litigation and court rulings dictating educational decisions. In his work
A study by the American Federation of Teachers in 2011 looked at the revenue lost in several states as a result of money being diverted to voucher programs. In most cases, these programs obtained funding by either increasing taxes or by reducing state aid to local school districts. Both the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program did just that. The Milwaukee program, in 2009, cost taxpayers roughly $130 million and the Cleveland program reduced Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid to the Cleveland public schools by $11,901,887 in 2007 (American Federation of Teachers, 2011).
One of the most significant issues with voucher programs is the fact that they do not have the same monitoring and regulations as public schools in order to obtain funding. “Perhaps the biggest critique of market-based reforms, such as school choice and performance based accountability is that they will further exacerbate inequalities in education” (Fusarelli and Young, 2011, p. 92). Not all program funding is distributed in the programs based on poverty. Parents of special education students are not guaranteed special education services. In addition, many programs are not monitored for the way they appropriate money. When a review of the Arizona tax credit programs was conducted, it was discovered that “almost two-thirds of all voucher organizations kept more funds for overhead than allowed under state law” (AFT, 2011, p.