Financing Education in a Climate of Change, Eleventh Edition (review)

"A new vision is needed of finance systems that create patterns of justice and fairness for all children and youths. State finance systems have not changed appreciably in almost a century."

-Verstegen and Brimley, 2010

Introduction

At the time of this writing in fall of 2011 the nation is still in the throes of the Great Recession that began three years ago in 2008—slipping downward for a second time. State and local budgets are facing shortfalls and the housing market, which is the staple of the local property tax for school funding in most districts, remains stagnant. The funds school districts received under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) intended to stave off massive layoffs will soon be exhausted. In the meantime the accountability mandates of No Child Left Behind ratchet up in every state as educators teach the most diverse cohort of students in American history. Never before has a thorough understanding of public school finance as it applies to the changing social, political and economic landscape been more important to an educational leader.

The latest edition of this popular text, Financing Education in a Climate of Change (Eleventh Edition), Brimley, Verstegen, and Garfield, improves on earlier editions, offering a thoughtfully critical approach to school finance issues. Among its sixteen chapters, the text includes the topics of the economics of education, funding adequacy, equity and state funding formulas, taxation principles, the roles of the local, state and federal governments in funding education, the influence of the courts, the funding of nonpublic schools, and the administration of school business aspects of education. The eleventh edition has been extensively rewritten with new tables, figures and explanations, including up-dated references, and has a new chapter on the influence of the courts in educational finance (Chapter 9). Professor Deborah Verstegen, a widely respected scholar in education finance, has joined the team of Vern Brimley, Jr. and the late Rulon Garfield in producing this edition.

At the opening of each chapter a Key Concepts box introduces important terminology. Each chapter concludes with Assignment Projects that trace historical roots of the concepts, sometimes including action-based activities that students may complete in order to affect actual policy. Selected readings, all new to this text, also appear at the end of each chapter. According to the publisher the book is available in digital formats such as the Kindle and Kindle for ipads, iphones and other devices. There is a test bank and PowerPoints for each chapter available on the website.

The authors utilize a style anchored to the issues and address critical misconceptions so often found in school finance as it is understood by the public and policymakers. The approach is rich in data and research rather than anecdotal. The narrative strikes a good balance between nuances of the finance concepts and outcomes while maintaining simplicity in detail. For this reason the text could be used in graduate courses or as a reference for policy makers and even school board members.

Whereas a staple in school finance texts is to present historical summaries of revenues and expenditures in public education and have students note how the percentages of federal, state, and local funding has changed over the last 100 years, the Brimley, Verstegen, and Garfield text, while addressing this topic, takes this activity a step further by focusing attention forward on how the changes in the United States' social demographics, its policy structures, and its economic environments in the last few years are challenging the validity of current school funding mechanisms in serving not only their original purposes, but to address the yet unidentified needs of educating an increasingly diverse population.

The book is organized around concepts introduced and developed in earlier editions. Each chapter can stand alone, but the organization of content makes for an enhanced curricular experience. Each chapter is written in a formal conversational style embedding the sources of the data and ideas...