| The 2001 Federal "No Child Left Behind Act" (2002) has ushered in the era of accountability for public education in the United States. In 2004, during the Arkansas Second Extraordinary Legislative Session, Governor Huckabee signed Act 35 into law. The act will reinforce and enhance the tenets of "No Child Left Behind" (2002) for the state of Arkansas. Section 9 of Act 35 refers specifically to the development of a performance accountability system to determine efficient fiscal allocations for Arkansas school districts.; The purpose of this study was to determine efficient allocation of school district financial resources for the delivery of educational services as related to performance outcomes for Arkansas public school students during the 2003--2004 school year. This study focused on the following fiscal allocations: administration, instruction, transportation, operation and maintenance, and support services. This research also took into consideration the impact of demographic variables such as; free and reduced lunch, ethnicity, average daily membership, and assessed property value per student. The statistical methods incorporated for this study were descriptive statistics, an ANOVA, and a post hoc test for significance at p=.01.; The major findings of this study were the high academic achieving school districts, as compared to the other academic achievement levels, had the; highest percent of net current expenditure for instruction, highest support service cost per student for instruction, lowest administrative cost per student, lowest transportation cost per student, and lowest expenditure per pupil cost. Also, high academic achieving schools districts had the; greatest number of students in average daily membership, lowest free and reduced lunch rate, and highest percent of Caucasian students, as compared to the other achievement levels.; Chapter Four provides a detailed account of the findings, including the fiscal allocation variables and demographic variables. Chapter Five discusses the efficient allocation of Arkansas school district fiscal resources as related to performance outcomes. The discussion includes a caution for Arkansas policy makers in developing a performance accountability system due to the uncontrollable influence of demographic variables. |
