CEEP has created a number of data visualizations that show the effect of changes to the state’s formula for calculating school funding, according to an IU press ?release.
The Indiana General Assembly passed a two-year bill that set the school funding formula for 2015-17 in April of this year, including cuts and extra funding for schools across the state. Research shows 307 corporations or charters gained funding while 56 lost funding.
The first visualization project focused on the Complexity Grant, the part of the funding formula that provides funds to corporations or charter schools based on the number of students from low-income families in that school’s population.
Thomas Sugimoto, a research associate at CEEP and a member of the School Finance Team, said the team chose the Complexity Grant because of its influence on school funding in the state.
“We first focused on the complexity grant because it was one of the more complicated parts of the school funding formula,” Sugimoto said. “Our goal was to show how changes to the Complexity Index formula affect funding to school corporations based on the types of students they serve. These changes have large impacts in how funding is distributed between Indiana’s school corporations.”
Using the tool, residents can compare how their school corporation or charter school compares to others across the state, according to the release.
Holly Hays
