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Write an essay to answer the four questions in the assignment sheet, each question should carry around 450 words. I uploaded four lecture slides and two reports, please consult these materials and write the paper based on these materials. Read the hints after each question carefully and answer based on the hints.
1. Briefly describe the school finance structure in England. What are the recent reforms that have been adopted and implemented with respect to school financing? (Hint: Read Ogden et al. (Does funding follow need), Chapter 5, School Funding, particularly the first few pages. Talk about the National Funding Formula, and the system that it replaced.)
2. How would you go about measuring the equity of the English school finance regime? Think about the relationship that you would like to explore, and describe the empirical framework and the exact variables that you would like to include. Why do the authors say, “A natural follow-on question to ask is whether the distribution across councils is in proportion to the level of assessed spending needs across councils. Due to the nature of education and the funding system, it is hard to provide an objective answer to this question”?
(Hint: Think of calculating school finance equity at the national level, council level, and school level – do we have data to conduct an equity analysis at each of these levels? But focus most on calculating council-level finance equity – think of the “council” as analogous to a “school district” in the U.S. – intuitively, you can think of England as a large U.S. state like New York, which has about 700 autonomous K-12 school districts.)
3. Should local councils be granted more autonomy with respect to school finance? Should they be given discretion to raise additional money – or should the central government try to limit or eliminate any additional spending by the councils (so as not to exacerbate inequality of spending)? What are the recent trends in school funding and its allocation?
(Hint: Read section 5.2 The resulting funding allocations and section 5.3 Changes in the distribution of funding across schools – also, draw upon the lessons from the U.S. experience (this coming week and the next we will talk at length about local revenues and state revenues in the context of school financing in the U.S.)
4. Read the chapter on Higher Education in the Annual Report on Education (Chapter 7, pages 51-62 of the print report). What is the distinguishing feature of English higher education system with respect to financing of college education? Describe the current scenario and mention the factors that the authors note under “Funding Pressures for Universities” – what do they say about the cap on tuition fees? Think about the lessons from Murphy-Scott-Clayton-Wyness paper (End of Free College) – what do you think will happen (to students, to universities) if the cap is raised, or if it is lowered?