AN EQUITY ANALYSIS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL FINANCE SYSTEM, 1975-1981

This study was an equity analysis of the Pennsylvania school finance system from 1975-76 through 1980-81. The problem of the study was to describe the equality or inequality characterizing the distributions of the finance system's fiscal outcomes, the wealth bias or neutrality indicated by the relationships of the fiscal outcomes to district tax base wealth, and the taxpayer equity or inequity revealed by the relationships of revenues and instructional expenditures to district tax effort.;The study found that Pennsylvania's school finance system pursued conflicting goals from 1975-76 through 1980-81; it endeavored to distribute state aid on the bases of both effort and need. The end result was that taxpayers received a more equitable treatment from the finance system than did students.;State aid increments provided tax relief in the form of lower millage rates. There was a highly significant relationship between educational funding and tax effort; funding increased substantially with tax rate increases. Wealthy districts did not systematically enjoy low tax rate levels; and poor districts, high tax levels.;On the other hand, students in wealthy districts benefited from more revenues and instructional expenditures than did students living in poor districts. The trend during the years from 1975-76 through 1980-81 was for revenue and instructional expenditure distributions to become more biased in favor of wealthy districts. The inequality characterizing the distributions of revenues and instructional expenditures increased from 1975-76 through 1980-81. The financial conditions for students below the revenue and instructional expenditure medians did not improve and in some cases deteriorated. Acts 59 and 41 failed to improve the inequitable treatment accorded students by the state finance plan.;Three types of equity measures were used. Two dispersion measures assessed the equality or inequality of fiscal outcome distributions--the coefficient of variation and the relative deviation from the median. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient measured the strength of relationships between variables; elasticity coefficients measured the magnitude of these relationships in percentage form. Winners and losers ratios indicated those district characteristics associated with advantageous and disadvantageous distributional effects from the state school finance system.