Financing urban schools: predicting fiscal stress in large city school districts

Abstract

Many large urban school districts in the United States have suffered from fiscal stress, while others have not. Fiscal stress often has led to program cutbacks, layoffs, and decline in the quality of educational services. The purpose of this research study was to examine the predictors of fiscal stress in large urban school districts and to develop a method for predicting fiscal stress. A variety of demographic, economic, financial, governance, and geographic variables were used. The study found a number of variables that were significantly related to large urban school district fiscal stress and produced a model for predicting fiscal stress.